


the creation of ursa major

by robpatFF



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robpatFF/pseuds/robpatFF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall would pull him all the way if he could, wrap his sunlight infused hand around Zayn’s and pull them up until they couldn’t breathe. And Zayn would let him, only to return (loyal, dependable, periodic) and settle around his Sirius before he’d float off again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the creation of ursa major

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snuffleslove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/snuffleslove/gifts).



> So this is for Natasha, who I can always count on to tell me when I'm doing things wrong and when I'm doing things right. Also because all Zayn things should be for Natasha.
> 
> Thanks to Brie and Amy for looking this over. And Amy for giving me this idea in the first place. Extra thanks to Mathab for reading this over in a pinch and like really coming through in the clutch. Amazing. 
> 
> So basically, this has been coming for a long time. It's the culmination of every space-related ficlet or mention I've made over the past few months. Hopefully this means I will never mention space again. It's indulgent as hell, as all things should be, because I love One Direction and I love Niall and Zayn and I love space.
> 
> Nothing belongs to me. Sad days, etc. All remaining mistakes belong to me, myself, and I.

The museum’s crowded during the day. It has its own brand of rush hour traffic, from ten in the morning ‘til about two, where it’s jam packed on all sides, full of school groups and wandering tourists and families stopped in the middle of the walkway. It’s hard to maneuver, but Zayn manages, his bag slung over his shoulder and his notebook tucked tight under his arm. He’s learned not to keep his best pen behind his ear, bumping into too many people and hearing the clatter of it being trampled underfoot.

It’s good, the crowd. It makes everything feel so much more alive, adds bits of humanity to the vast, unattainable space that’s plastered on the walls, hung up from the ceilings in a bizarre attempt to recreate what can’t even be imagined. The sheer amount of people keep Zayn tethered to Earth as he finds his favorite nook, a bit of a bench carved into the wall right by the Voyager Spacecraft and the Big Dipper exhibits. He’s still making his way around, has been since he stumbled into this place a few weeks ago, hungover and bored and jittery around the edges. But this is his favorite place so far, tucked out of sight of everyone else but still with a perfect view, within the line of sight of the pure awe that gets plastered on people’s faces, the bewilderment that something like the Voyager could move through time and space and still come back. 

It’s noon now, and Zayn’s stomach starts grumbling right on time. He’s in the middle of a sketch, the barebones of Ursa Major, something he’s done before but it’s not quite right, not quite settling. He’s distracted a bit; the museum is more crowded than usual. It’s field trip day, apparently, and when Zayn looks out at the crowd it’s to a sea of solid-coloured t-shirts, harried parents and children too busy sneaking off to appreciate the magnitude of the universe around them.

The food court is huge, space themed with huge acrylic-painted planets hanging from the ceiling, rings of Saturn jutting out low enough to touch. Zayn does, smiling a little at the paint that comes off on his fingers. It’s a little like good luck at this point, rubbing the rough edges of Saturn’s rings, feeling the sticky, cheap paint that sticks to his fingertips. The blue had smudged on his fingers for a few days last week, lasting like a bruise.

Zayn finds a table by the doors, where he can see everyone that comes in. He takes a break from Ursa Major, her sharp angles that don’t sit quite so right in the pages of his sketchbook. She refuses to be contained on blank, white pages, and Zayn doesn’t blame her, mostly. It’s still frustrating though, trying to scale down something so massive into something so small and inconsequential. So he switches to people, draws the curves of noses and wild hair that can be seen from across the food court. He draws the children that run past him and bump into his legs, force his chair back with a scrape and have his pen fumbling across the page. 

He draws until the feeling settles, the jittery, restless tremble in the tips of his fingers that won’t quit some days. He draws until his stomach rebels against him, grumbling loud enough that he can’t ignore it anymore. 

Despite what anyone says, the Cosmic Fries are the best on the menu. They remind Zayn of home, of his sisters and summer nights and eating junk food and carrying it out into the backyard. He gets the Solar Cheese with them, just because he can, folds himself up in his chair and watches people walk in and out. The cheese sits heavy in his stomach, fills him up too fast until he’s too lazy to go wandering on his own, content to just sit and watch other people discover replicas of the stars burning up in the sky.

There’s a group coming through, all solid-coloured purple shirts and nametags plastered to their chests. Zayn never came anywhere like this when he was in school, probably wouldn’t have appreciated it like he does now, the ability to have something unexplainable held together in front of your eyes. He can see the awe in some of the kids faces, the way their eyes get too big and they push to the front, eager to follow their guide.

It’s some guy Zayn hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t watch the tours much, too caught up in his sketches and going through the exhibits himself. But this guy is lively, excited about space in a way that makes the corners of Zayn’s mouth tilt up. He’s got his standard museum t-shirt on, but his nametag’s been shaped to look like Saturn, his name stuck to the rings circling around. 

“This is the Apollo 11 Command Module,” the guy is saying, and Zayn sits up. His accent is distinct, mouth curling around the words and carrying through the room. “During the first moon mission, the astronauts lived in there.”

“ _Astronauts_ lived in there?” a kid asks, and Zayn watches the guide smile, his mouth curving into controlled amusement. “Can I?”

“Um, no,” the guide says. He runs fingers through dirty blonde hair, soft-looking and flat over his forehead. “’S just for display now, actually.”

“ _Lame_ ,” one of them says, and Zayn can’t catch himself before he laughs too loud, eyes meeting the guide’s. He winks at Zayn, quick enough that Zayn could have imagined it, before he’s shuffling the group away from the module and further into the exhibit. 

Zayn’s up and throwing away his trash before he realizes, his sketchbook tucked into his bag and his pen perched precariously behind his ear. He doesn’t know why he’s following, just that he is, Docs scuffling over the marble floor as he travels behind the guide’s voice, follows it to the Big Dipper exhibit. 

“And this,” the guide says, arms sweeping out to encompass the whole room, “is the Big Dipper.” He tilts his head back and Zayn watches his blue eyes trace over the illuminations that twinkle across the ceiling, lit up in the shape of the Big Dipper itself. “Awesome, yeah?”

“Why do they call it the Big Dipper?” a girl near the front asks. She’s a little smaller than the others, and the guide bends at his knees so he’s eye level with her, gentle smile and bright eyes. 

“Dunno,” he says. He shrugs, points a finger up and outlines the shape of it in the air. “Think it’s something to do with the shape, you know? You ever seen a dipper before?”

The girl nods her head, hair shaking in her eyes. The guide laughs and pushes it away from her face, tucks it carefully behind her ear. “Mummy has one in the kitchen!”

“Exactly,” the guy says. He lifts the girl up, both of them staring up at the digital stars blinking down from the ceiling. “Dontcha think it looks a bit like yer mum’s dipper, then?”

She nods again, and the guide puts her down, watches as she runs to the wall where the museum’s got another picture of the Big Dipper up, spread across the entire left wall. Zayn slips back into his nook, out of sight, back to his drawing of Ursa Major but focusing on the Big Dipper this time. He finds himself sketching an outline of a girl, her young, chubby fingers tracing over stars lined up in the sky. 

He loses himself in that for awhile. Ursa Major is fascinating on her own, but drawing her is-- like, Zayn gets to connect the seven stars of the Big Dipper in the corner of the page, gets to connect them with the Three Leaps of Gazelle, all the stars in line and angled towards each other. Zayn gets to draw that until Ursa Major becomes whole, the Great Bear that she is, all her stars falling together and burning bright to form her constellation. 

It doesn’t feel like enough, having a constellation that can be seen by the entire northern hemisphere reduced to an 8 x 11 blank page, held down by gravity and the weight of lead. It has to be though, so Zayn signs it in the corner, a little _zm_ that’s become tradition, cramped up and traced light in the bottom right of the page. 

Zayn closes his sketchpad and stands up, stretches his legs and takes in the quiet of the exhibit. There are only a few people now scattered throughout the room and silent in their observations. Zayn finds himself by the left wall again, fingers tracing over the contours of the constellation etched into the wall, her twists and turns, how he could so easily get lost inside her. How badly he _wants_ to, just to know everything there is to know about her and every other constellation hidden inside the infinite galaxies that Zayn tries so desperately to recreate on days like this.

He stumbles over Merak and Dubhe, traces his fingers over their massive sense of self, the way they burn with so much power, even in this exhibit, without flames and without being anchored up in the universe. He passes over Phecda, and Mizar, his mouth fumbling over the names, the repetition coming like a mantra, something to hold on to. Something bigger and more powerful than Zayn could ever hope to be. It fascinates him, these stars that have settled so chaotically behind the clouds, burning for millenniums, surpassing people and places and life itself. 

“She’s a beast, isn’t she?,” someone says from behind him, and Zayn jumps, fumbles to a stop in the middle of Alkaid and checks behind him. It’s the guide from before, still in his museum shirt, his Saturn nametag pinned on his chest. 

_Niall_. 

“A beast?” Zayn repeats. He clutches his bag closer, pushes his glasses up on his face.

Niall shrugs. He moves closer to the wall so he’s right up next to Zayn, warm and smelling like the museum bakery and the Mars cookies they leave out on the counter. “A beast,” Niall says again. “Shaped like a bear, isn’t she? Tough, this one is.”

He’s looking at Zayn, all expectant and curious and Zayn’s saying, “Never really thought about why she’s shaped like a bear, to be honest,” before he realizes it.

“Oh man,” Niall says. He jumps on his feet a little, leaning closer to Zayn. He’s definitely got Mars cookies on him; Zayn can smell the chocolate and cinnamon, and he’s taken enough free samples to know. “There’s a story about why she’s shaped like a bear. D’ya know it?”

Zayn shakes his head and feels Niall lean closer, pushing their bodies together. He leans in, lifts Zayn’s hand up and presses it back up against the wall. “Can I tell you? Yer gonna love it, promise.”

Zayn sighs. He nods again at Niall’s raised eyebrows, the excited way his eyes widen. “Go on, man. It’s your job, right?”

“And it’s just fuckin’ awesome,” Niall says. “Okay, so, like, there’s this girl, Callisto, yeah? And she’s a badass, right, like training with Artemis to be a hunter, that sort of stuff. And Zeus sees her one day and--” Niall claps his hands together, hard enough to make Zayn jump a little. “ _Bam_ , falls in love, just like that.”

“That’s Zeus for you,” Zayn says dryly. 

Niall smiles at him, all blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s blinding a bit, Zayn notices this close up. Niall all lit up like this. “You into Greek mythology too?”

Zayn shrugs and waves a hand around the exhibit. He’s been reading up on mythology since he was a kid, ever since he found out the stars could be explained by science and stories alike. “Kinda hard not to be, isn’t it?” he asks. “It’s all connected.”

Niall nods, smile filtering out to the corners of his eyes, brightening up the pink in his cheeks. “Exactly. So, like, Zeus comes down, disguised as Artemis. Knocks her up like a real dick, you know? And then Hera finds out.”

“Hera always finds out,” Zayn says, because he’s read enough mythology to know this. Spent enough time curled up in stiff library chairs reading about the many feuds between Hera and Zeus to know how this ends. Niall bounces again, teetering a little in his high tops, unbridled excitement spilling out of him like moonshine. 

“ _Always_ ,” he says. “So Callisto has her kid who turns out to be a sick hunter. Convenient for Hera, who turns Callisto into a fucking _bear_.” He pauses for effect, glancing at Zayn to make sure he’s still listening. “D’ya see where this is going?”

“Nah,” Zayn says. He does, obviously, but Niall smells like chocolate and cinnamon and he’s tracing the angles of the Big Dipper as he talks, absently like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. “Go on, finish the story.”

“Okay, so right when her son is about to kill her, Zeus snatches ’er up, right there, and puts her up in the sky, just like that. He stuck her right up there with the stars.”

“The creation of Ursa Major,” Zayn breathes out. It’s fascinating, all of it. The scientific reasonings, the explosions and gas and implosions beyond the night sky. But this part, stories and mythology that have been passed down for years, the humanization of a universe that seems so much larger than life itself, more vast and unimaginable than any human could ever comprehend--it’s. “Incredible,” Zayn says.

“Incredible,” Niall agrees. He’s still tracing over the constellation on the wall, his finger stopped over the handle of the Big Dipper. “And her son too, you know. Zeus anchored him up there right with his mum. The Little Dipper.”

“Do they teach you that here?” Zayn asks him. “All the mythology?”

“Nah.” Niall shrugs. He points up at the ceiling, where the stars are shifting, the midnight-tinted sky opening up to reveal the full shape of the bear, beyond just the Big Dipper. “Just learn the science stuff, really. The rest I learn on my own.”

Zayn watches the animation go through its course, settling into Ursa Major at the top and Ursa Minor spread across the bottom. “’M Zayn,” he says belatedly, sticking his hand out.

Niall shakes it with a smile, soft, blonde hair falling over his eyes. He glances down at his nametag, where the _Niall_ glitters over Saturn’s rings, pinned like the North Star in the middle of his shirt. “I’m Niall.” He gives a little laugh, dimple settling into his cheek. “’S meant to mean, like, cloud, I think. So. Fitting, yeah?”

“Fitting,” Zayn agrees. 

He walks Zayn around the rest of Big Dipper exhibit, reading out the names along with Zayn, stumbling over names of the stars like _Mizar_ and _Alioth_ and breaking off bits of Mars cookies (Zayn fucking knew it) for them to share. He’s still on his shift, technically, 

(“No more tours for today though,” he says, “So I don’t think anyone’ll be looking for me for a bit.”)

but he traces the lines of Ursa Major with Zayn, both their fingers hovering over the animated lights as they travel up the wall, etching themselves into a replicated universe of their own. 

“She’s a beast, isn’t she?” Niall says again, right before Zayn has to leave, both of them cramped up in Zayn’s nook and staring up at the ceiling. 

Zayn stares up at the contours of her body, this all encompassing constellation with her shapes and sharp points and constant, burning stars holding her together. “Yeah,” Zayn says quietly. “She’s a beast.”

Niall nudges his shoulder a little, breaking off the final bit of his last Mars cookie and holding it out. “You should come back,” he tells Zayn quietly. “Explore some more. The universe is fucking massive, you know. And we’ve got, like, a million exhibits.”

“A million?”

Niall nods his head. The lights play funny over his face, highlighting his darker roots and the sharp blue in his eyes. They flicker over his face like stars on their own, like a clear night laid out in the middle of nowhere, quiet and counting the glitter in the sky that seems close enough to touch. 

“Yeah, I’ll be back,” Zayn says eventually. 

He thinks the creation of Ursa Major could have started with a ball of gas or the hand of Zeus, could have started with a star or a woman, an explosion or the hot strike of jealousy. He thinks he could find out, maybe, eventually, all the secrets of the universe hidden between these walls, hidden in the stars that twinkle over Niall’s face, in the way his fingers trace wise and knowledgeable over the constellation’s angling form. 

“To explore?” Niall asks.

“To explore.” _The universe_ , Zayn thinks. _Maybe you_.

\-----

When Zayn was eight, his mum used to drop him off in front of the library in the summers, right before she went to work. It scared him at first, being by himself, stuck in one place and waiting for her to come back. It was weeks before he mustered up the nerve to venture past the comic books, sat in one of the comfy chairs by the door, torn between racing over the blurbs and words on the pages in front of him and checking out the window for her beat up sedan.

It got easier, a bit, once he discovered the astronomy section. The books were thick, huge and heavy and dusty, gravity dropping them neatly at Zayn’s feet before he’d found the stepstool in the corner.

It wasn’t his first time being interested in the stars. He liked staring at them at night, peeking out his window after dark, wishing on the brightest ones that twinkled through the clouds and buildings. 

It was that first summer though, the one that taught Zayn about the Big Dipper. It told him about the galaxies that spread out past the moon, chaotic and powerful and shrouded in stardust and particles and mystery. He remembers carting three or four of those books on the wheeling cart, all the way to the back of the library where he could lose himself in space and time and the universes that hid beyond Earth, the ones that stretched miles further than his imagination could, housing their own atmospheres and moons and tides. 

It was also that summer he met Louis, loud and brash and scraped knees. They bumped into each other near the books about Mars, the ones that explored the prospect of water, of life, of something beyond the world that fascinated Zayn all on its own. Zayn had been on his stool, trusted and sturdy, and Louis had been running through the racks, head somewhere in the clouds as he tried to hide from the librarians, too many books tucked up under his arms.

Zayn doesn’t remember much, just crashing to the floor. He remembers Louis’ hair in his face, all floppy and pin straight. He remembers the curl of a mouth, not quite cruel, but mischievous and a little cunning all the same. Zayn remembers being pulled up to his feet, remembers the rip in Louis’ jeans and how his hands were sticky. 

(Literally and metaphorically, because Louis has _perpetually_ sticky hands)

He remembers the, “ _Run_ ,” that Louis had whispered, urgent and bossy and pushing at Zayn. He remembers running, following Louis through a library without hesitation, like Louis was a gravitational force all on his own, and Zayn was helpless to do anything but be pulled along by his strength. 

Zayn remembers that most of all, the unmistakable pull Louis had to him. Just as chaotic and imaginative as the galaxies Zayn spent so much time reading about now.

It still feels like that now, a little bit. Zayn can feel his attention being pulled towards Louis, sat stretched out on Zayn’s bed. He seems to take up all the space in the room, sucking up all the oxygen like he’s some unexplored galaxy and Zayn has no choice but to lean in just to get a bit of something.

“So then _I_ said--” Louis is saying, and Zayn concentrates on staying steady on the bed, standing up so he can reach high enough to tape up his brochures. “Zayn, are you listening?”

Zayn hums. He tries not to step on Louis’ legs as he shifts a little over, intent on putting the brochure from the Big Dipper exhibit right up next to his painting of Ursa Major. It’s only fitting, and Zayn has a theme somewhere in here, in the wrinkled up brochures and and photographs and paintings he hangs so carefully on the wall. The museum handouts are bigger than he anticipated, and Zayn’s not even visited half the exhibits yet, stuck on Ursa Major and all her starlit intricacies, the careful way the museum tries to recreate the flaming power that makes her whole. 

“You’re not listening.”

“I am,” Zayn says. He finds a good spot, catches the tape from between his thighs and concentrates on getting the corners straight. It’s a simple brochure, more basic information than anything, but the whole thing is becoming a constellation in itself, a mock-up of all the universe’s individual parts creating something bigger. “And then you said _what_ exactly?”

Louis sighs and Zayn looks down at him finally. Summer’s coming, and it shows with the way Louis’ fringe is sticking to his forehead, how his arms are bare in the thin racerback he’s wearing, stolen out of one of Zayn’s drawers. He’s flushed a little, warm and bright like he belongs anchored somewhere above Earth, not stretched out on a ratty mattress. 

“Nothing,” Louis says. “It’s stupid anyway.” He closes his eyes and breathes in deep, and Zayn watches the careful rise and fall of his chest. “Tell me about your star stuff instead.”

“My star stuff,” Zayn repeats. He goes back to taping up the edges of the brochure, and he can feel the moment Louis starts watching him again, the heavy weight of his hawk-eyed gaze. “I talk about that all the time.”

“Tell me something new,” Louis whines. “C’mon, Zayn, you’ve been hiding out at that museum _all week_. Teach me something, you know how much I love space.”

“Not at all, you mean.”

It was fun at first when they were little, exploring space in that wide-eyed way kids do. Zayn and Louis used to squish together in one chair, a big, heavy book about the planets or the stars or comets spread out over their laps. Zayn would read the words aloud, hushed and private between the two of them, Louis following along with his finger. Zayn remembers stumbling over the names of the planets, the stars, the asteroids, remembers not even knowing how to pronounce some of the unimaginable parts of the universe, remembers Louis laughing a little at him, telling him he got it close enough.

But whereas Zayn had a head past the clouds, had his thoughts spiraling out to space, the moon, all the different galaxies spread beyond what can be measured, Louis kept two feet firmly on the ground. It seemed hindering then, like Louis was gravity, settling Zayn firmly here on Earth, but it was a little more reassuring now, knowing he could just reach a hand out and be pulled from the midst of the universe’s ordered chaos. 

It’s the same now, with Zayn hanging up his brochures, plastering his wall with images of space and Louis’ hand wrapped firmly around his ankle, solid and anchoring. 

“What d’ya wanna know, then?” Zayn asks eventually. He flops down, stretched out opposite of Louis, still feeling gentle fingers tracing over the tattoo that wraps around his ankle. 

Louis shrugs. He looks like he could fall asleep in a moment, dangerously still and languid. “Anything. I need to make sure you won’t up and fly to the moon without me.”

“I wouldn’t,” Zayn says. “You know I wouldn’t.”

“ _Tell_ me something,” Louis says again. 

Zayn closes his eyes, thinking of Ursa Major and her many variables, her stars that make shapes within shapes, constellations within constellations. Thinking about science and mythology blending together in a galaxy of their own, creation stories imploding in on themselves like burnt out stars, little bits of stardust floating down to Earth until someone shares pieces of them, bit by bit, myth and science in equal amounts. 

“Do you know,” Zayn begins, “how Ursa Major was created?”

Louis sinks back into his pillows, eyes closed. He traces lazy figure eights over the sharp bone where his fingers rest, his legs crossed and resting in Zayn’s lap. “A comet? The Big Bang? The sun? I don’t know.”

“Zeus,” Zayn says decidedly. “There’s a story that, like, he fell in love with this hunter, Callisto, right? And so, Hera found out, turned her into, like, a bear. And in order to protect her from being killed, Zeus hid her up in the stars. Made her into a constellation.”

Louis huffs out a bit of a laugh, his hair blowing up on the exhale. “M’little romantic Zayner.”

“’S all a bit romantic, isn’t it?”

It’s a well-worn argument: that Zayn is a romantic because he dreams about infinite expanding universes. Because there is a possibility (a _good_ possibility, so fuck you, Louis) that there is a world, a reality, an alternative space slash time continuum where Zayn has everything he wants, everything he needs. Where he has Louis, and maybe that’s enough, or someone else to fill all the spaces where Louis’ own sunlight can’t reach, the dark, cold spaces where it’s just Zayn by himself sometimes. 

It’s a bit romantic to think that those spaces, those alternate universes and planes and various dimensions are made up of humans and human emotions, of love and jealousy and passion and all these things that ignite war and rivalry and _creation_. That such a thing, the universe, in its grappling and infinite definition, could have evolved from something as simple and primal as emotion, in all its lowliness and exaltation in equal parts.

Maybe it’s romantic, and maybe it makes _Zayn_ romantic, to believe in such a thing. But he can see the sunlight under Louis’ skin, the bits of stardust that glitter in his eyes. He remembers the glow of Niall’s hair; the way fake stars burned into his skin like the real thing under museum lights. Zayn can feel the press of Louis’ fingers, the small, infinite universes he holds beneath his fingertips, the way Louis leaves a trail like a burning comet.

The way Louis traces over the colors inked around Zayn’s ankle, the ever-shifting particles across a night sky. How Louis says, “My little romantic, my very own Halley’s Comet,” and presses into the fading comet and trail of blazing lights that’s inked around Zayn skin, etched permanent and deep. _Because you always come back_ , Louis told him once, and Zayn did, and does, and always will. 

“My very own Sirius,” Zayn murmurs back, _brightest star in the sky_ and he listens for Louis’s soft breathing, the creak of the bed when he shifts. “You know who told me that story?”

“Who?”

“This guy at the museum,” Zayn says. Niall, with the blue eyes ripped straight from Aurora Borealis and hair blonde and bright. “I wonder what other stories there are, you know?”

“You should ask,” Louis says, voice slow, raspy and thick and lazy. “Go back and ask ‘im. Not right now though, ’s our time right now, yeah?”

“Later,” Zayn tells him. “And then I’ll come back.”

Because Zayn is Louis’ Halley’s Comet and Louis is Sirius, brightest star in the sky. The museum holds other parts of the universe, bits of puzzle pieces that fit together like stars in a constellation. Niall is a part of that, eager and loud and a whole galaxy of knowledge at his disposal. He’s his own part of the universe, set in motion just like Zayn and Louis, and Zayn wonders which part Niall is, which star or comet or loyal, orbiting moon matches Niall the most.

“Later,” Zayn settles on.

“And then you’ll come back,” Louis adds. “Always come back.”

\-----

The museum is full of kids and chaperones in solid coloured t-shirts when Zayn makes his way in. He’s a little sweaty, the sun bearing down on him the whole way down, his shirt stuck to his back.

He’s thinking vaguely of getting a Meteor Shower Icee, or one of those bitter iced coffee things that Louis likes to drink when he’s feeling particularly moody and out of orbit. The Meteor Shower wins, because Zayn can feel sweat cooling on his forehead, the way his skinnies feel heavy and weighted against his legs. The cherry is his favorite, reminds him of his sisters in all their sweetness, and he’s feeling fonder than usual at all the kids running wild through the food court and out to the admissions hallway where the tour groups meet. 

He’s not looking for Niall really, tells himself he’s waiting for the stars to align themselves if they’re really meant to see each other. It’s a little ridiculous, because Niall _works_ here, and Zayn’s bound to run into him eventually, and he does.

He hears Niall before he sees him, the loud booming voice and lilting distinct accent. Zayn follows that until he sees the spike of blonde hair Niall’s got, his roots on display from how his hair’s pushed back today. Niall sees him, and Zayn catches the startling blue of his eyes, how the skin next to them crinkles up like angles of a constellation when he smiles.

“Ursa Major, _hey_ ,” Niall calls out when they’re close enough not to have to yell. He’s got a purple shirt on to match all the kids crowding around him, his name printed on a paper sun today, black sunglasses drawn on the surface in marker. _Hi, I’m Niall_. “You’re here.”

“’M here,” Zayn answers. “Are you busy today?”

“Swamped,” Niall says. He calls out to one of the kids running back towards the food court. “Natalie, yeah? We’ll get more Comet Fries when the tour’s done, okay? And I’ll get Liam t’ make you Mars cookies, special order. Deal?”

He smiles when the little girl smiles, his nose wrinkling up with it. 

“Mars cookies?” Zayn asks, because he remembers Niall smelling like them, little bits and pieces shoved into a napkin in the pocket of his trousers. “You know who makes those?”

Niall smiles again, bright like the tail end of a meteor shower, falling away just as quick. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Li’s _my_ cookie guy.” He glances at Zayn, eyes narrowed. “How about this, okay. You come with me on this tour, let me wow you with the sheer amount of space knowledge I’ve amassed up here,” he says, pointing at his head. “And then I’ll take you back into the kitchen and let you have as many Mars cookies as you want?”

“Can’t you get fired for that?” He’s not really worried about that. He’s more worried about how badly he wants to say yes, wants to explore the rest of the museum and the bits of it hung up on the walls and ceilings and the unknown parts of it hidden away in Niall’s brain. “What exhibits are you going to?”

Niall glances down at the clipboard in his hands. “First up’s the solar system. Then we might be able to squeeze in one about the Moon. S’posed to be the Armstrong one but I’ve always been more a fan of Buzz Aldrin, you know? Then the last stop’s the observatory for like an hour. ’S gonna be _sick_.” He looks at Zayn again, eyes Neptune blue and excitement brimming in the twitch of his mouth and the way he bounces on his feet. “C’mon, say yes.”

He waits for Zayn to nod, before yelling back at one of the chaperones about how he’ll be right back. They weave their way down the hallway, past the ticket booths and gallery and towards the offices hidden away. Niall keeps hold of Zayn’s hand, peeking around the corners before he pulls Zayn into one of the rooms, empty and stocked with boxes.

“T-shirt,” Niall says decidedly. “Gotta be stealth, you know.” He throws Zayn a purple one that matches the one he has on today, before he’s digging around in one of the desks. “And you need a name tag. What’ll it be? Don’t think we have any bears though.”

Zayn peers into the drawer, fingers clutching at the comet before he really thinks about it. “This one,” he says decisively, and Niall smiles, writing _Hi, I’m Zayn_ out careful and neat in the middle of it. 

“Fan of the dirty snowballs then?” Niall asks. He’s got his tongue sticking out, face settled into something like concentration as he pins the comet on the t-shirt Zayn’s slipped into, safety pin held deftly between his fingers. “Prick myself every fuckin’ day with these things,” he mutters.

Zayn nods, holding his body still as Niall trusses him up. “Got one on my ankle,” he says. He doesn’t know why; he never really talks about his tattoos, and it’s not really just _a_ comet he’s got on his ankle. It’s Halley’s Comet, _Louis’_ comet, more than that. A permanent link between the two of them, an inked promise of a return just as important as Halley’s comet itself. 

“Can I see?” Niall asks, and Zayn hesitates for a moment before he hops up on the desk and rolls the hem of his trouser leg up. Niall crouches down a bit to get a eye level, his fingers coming up slow and inquiring. “Can I touch it?” he wonders, and Zayn nods. 

Niall runs careful, gentle figure over the head of the comet, the blue head of it before it devolves into a collision or purples and pinks and darker blues at its tail, bits of stars caught up in its path. “Which one is it?”

“Halley’s,” Zayn tells him. _Louis’._ “D’ya know it?” Of course Niall knows it. Niall knows stories about Ursa Major and her origin, about hunters and envy and the gods using humans as instruments for creation. Of course he knows about Halley’s Comet.

“Yeah,” Niall breathes out. He clears his throat, standing up and between Zayn’s legs. “One of the astronomers here saw it in ‘86, yeah? Said it was the best night of his life.”

Zayn rolls his trouser leg down and hops off the desk, steadying himself on his feet. “What do you know about it, though?”

Niall smiles and moves away, closing up the boxes he’d opened and putting away the extra nametags. He ushers Zayn back into the hallway, locking the door behind him. 

“You want another story, Ursa Major?” He asks, grabbing Zayn’s hand again as they walk back towards the main entrance. The noise picks up the closer they get to the entrance area of the museum, and Niall moves closer. “D’ya know some people think Halley’s comet is what killed off the dinosaurs?”

“Did it?”

“Wasn’t there, was I?” Niall pokes his head around the corners, making sure no one sees them sneaking through. “Could have been. There also some people that say it marked the death of Julius Caesar.”

“Thought that was Brutus,” Zayn says dryly, and Niall knocks their arms together, mouth curving up a little.

“Funny man. Nah, like, comet hit the same night, you know? And for years there were all these astronomers who thought it was an omen. That, like, I don’t know. They thought comets brought death. Even like the Black Plague. Comets, man.”

Zayn shrugs. “’S a lot of power they’re giving leftover bits of the solar system, isn’t it?” It’s a lot of power to give anything, a lot of power to _have_ , but if anything could, maybe it’s a comet. The leftover debris from the creation of the planets and the sun, the orbiting moons and asteroids that line themselves across the galaxy. 

“Well, it’s mostly disproved now,” Niall says. He pulls Zayn back into the organized chaos of the front hall, where there are even more children now, all in the same agonizing shade of purple. “But, don’t think anything can _really_ be disproved about the universe, can it?” He shrugs, making his way toward the front of their group. “When I was younger my Dad told me comets were the gods showing their disdain at mortals. Couldn’t sleep for weeks, thought Zeus was gonna blow my feckin’ head off with one of ‘em.”

Zayn laughs and Niall disappears to the front of the crowd, calling for a bit of order. He smiles when their group quiets down, waves a little and winks back at Zayn. “Hello, um,” he glances down at his clipboard, “Islington Primary. I’m Niall and I’m gonna be yer tour guide for the day, if that’s alright with you.” He glances back at Zayn, smile turning a little quieter. “And I’ve got a new friend with me today, Zayn, who knows as much as I do about space, the final frontier.”

He gestures for Zayn to come up, so Zayn does, wary under the watchful eyes of children and their chaperones alike. He’s supposed to look like he fits in, like he works here, but he mostly feels a bit out of orbit, like he hasn’t quite found his spot in the museum filled with the inner workings of the universe.

“Ready?” Niall asks.

“Ready.”

Zayn’s never been to the Solar System exhibit, so he follows Niall, his eyes up on the ceiling where the planets are hung. They’re bigger than the ones in the food court, these more detailed and intricate to reflect the actual surfaces of the inner and outer planets and everything settled so carefully up past the clouds. 

The museum’s put Earth in the center, her greens and blues and browns carefully filled in. Zayn’s always been more interested in what lies past Earth, the stars and constellations and galaxies left to be explored, but she’s fascinating on her own, the way there are some parts of her that have never been seen, the way that in an infinite and ever-expanding universe, she is the only real place Zayn can call home.

“Right,” Niall says. He claps his hands, looking expectedly out at his group. “Anyone know which planet this is?”

There is a chorus of _Earth_ that makes Zayn smile, makes Niall smile too, when Zayn looks back at him. 

“You’re all geniuses,” Niall tells them. “This is Earth, where we all have the pleasure of living and breathing. ’S a pretty awesome planet, you know?” He grabs a stack of brochures by one of the plaques on the wall that has a size chart hung up on the wall, the planets drawn to scale. “These fancy papers can tell you a bit more, but that’s a little boring, right? So we’re gonna go through and look for ourselves.”

He leads the group around the exhibit. The way it’s set up, it’s easy to see how each planet is described, the elements in the atmosphere, its orbit around the sun, the distance between them all. They start with Mercury, first planet from the sun.

“’S the only planet without an atmosphere, did you know?” Niall says.

“Then how do people _breathe_?” A kid asks, and Niall crouches down so they’re on the same level.

“They don’t, little man. Far as I know, there are no people on Mercury.” The kid stares at Niall likes he’s lying, and Niall stares back, waiting. “Ya don’t believe me?”

“No.”

Niall laughs, this loud thing that feels out of place in the quiet exhibit but somehow settles in perfectly. “C’mon, tell me why then. You think there’s people on Mercury?”

The kid shrugs, stubborn, and Niall wrinkles his nose at him. “I just think you don’t really _know_ , do ya? Maybe there’s alien people on Mercury that don’t need to breathe.”

Niall nods, standing up and clapping the kid on the shoulder. “You, my friend,” he says, “are well on your way to becoming to a proper astronomer. Don’t trust anyone that tells you otherwise.”

“You?”

“Except me,” Niall tells him. He pushes the kid towards the huge replica Mercury hanging up. “You wanna go check it out?”

The kid nods and runs off, and Niall follows after him, making a face at Zayn before he goes. Zayn drifts off to the other side of the exhibit, taking in Uranus and Saturn and Jupiter. He feels his breath catch at how fucking massive Jupiter is compared to Earth, 300 times the mass. Seems impossible that something so huge could stay afloat and be held together by hands of the universe.

“’Scuse me, mister?” someone says, and Zayn looks down to see a little girl staring back up at him. She’s got a purple t-shirt on, so she’s one of Niall’s, all bright eyes and messy hair and her name stickered on a neon yellow star. _Alexa_. “Hi, can you help me see?”

“Um, hi,” Zayn says. He’s not used to dealing with any kids that aren’t related to him--that’s Louis’ thing, and apparently Niall’s--but this one doesn’t look like it’s going to bite him. “Niall’s, um, over there,” he tells her. “He can help you with whatever you want.”

She shakes her head, curls falling in her face. “’S a bit loud, isn’t he?” she says, and they both look over to where Niall’s got two kids on his shoulders, holding them steady and his eyes wide as he practically yells about the continuous search for life on Mars. Zayn hears the word _aliens_ , all reverent and weighted, sees the look of awe on the kids’ faces when Niall points out all the similarities between Mars and Earth. “And I wanna look at this planet anyway,” she tells him, pointing up at Jupiter. “Pick me up, please.”

“Um,” is what Zayn says, but he picks her up anyway, settling her on the jut of his hip as the both stare up at the giant Jupiter on this side of the wall.

“What’s this one called?”

“Jupiter, you ever heard of it?”

She huffs, tucking her hair away from her face. “Of _course_ I have. I just didn’t know what it looked like.”

“Right, sorry. Of course you have.”

Zayn hadn’t, when he was younger, not before his mum started taking him to the library and he made a home between the shelves, between the stars and the planets and the comets. He wonders what he’d be like if she hadn’t, or if he’d found other books in the library to love, if he’d been as easy to distracted as Louis was, still is. If he’d still be someone’s returning comet, if he’d be as convinced there was his own bit of the universe waiting for him to find it.

“What’s it say on the wall?” the Alexa asks, pointing at the plaques that sit underneath Jupiter. 

“Well, um,” Zayn moves closer, peering down at the writing. “It says that Jupiter’s the biggest planet in the solar system, which is, like, really cool.” He glances over to make sure she’s actually listening, and she is, the same wide eyed wonder Zayn feels on his own face whenever he walks through the museum doors. “And it’s mostly made of hydrogen and helium.”

“Helium? Like in balloons?”

“Exactly,” Zayn tells her. “I wonder if all the aliens on Jupiter talk all high and squeaky like this,” he says, voice high and reedy until she starts laughing, face pressed against his shoulder. “You think they do?”

“Definitely.”

Zayn keeps reading, face pressed too close. “Jupiter has four large moons, named Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.” _The creation of Ursa Major,_ Zayn thinks. “And about sixty small moons, wow, that’s a lot right?”

“How many does Earth have?”

“Just the one.”

She shifts a little against Zayn’s hip, stretching closer so she can see. “What’s the name of our moon?”

Zayn walks them back around the where Earth hangs, the moon painted grey just beside her. “Just the Moon, I guess,” Zayn says. “Different people call it different things but it’s just the Moon.”

She nods decisively, staring up at the moon’s grey surface and the craters carved out. “The Moon’s my favorite planet.”

“Well, that’s very nice of you,” Zayn tells her, “but it’s not actually a planet.”

“That is very sad,” Alexa huffs. She wiggles a bit, silently asking Zayn to put her down. “The universe is very sad, Zayn.”

Zayn watches her walk away, curls hung limp over her shoulder. “What’d you do to her?” Niall asks, and Zayn jumps a little at how close he is suddenly. 

Zayn shrugs. “Think I just fucked up the universe for her, to be honest,” he says. “I told her that her favorite planet wasn’t actually a planet.”

“Pluto?”

“The Moon.”

“Ah,” Niall says. “Well, the universe is full of tragedies, isn’t it? C’mon, tell me your favorite, then.”

Zayn hums. He looks around the exhibit,eyes lingering on each of the replicated planets that hang from the ceiling. When he was younger, he was convinced his favorite planet would always be Earth, the one that gave him life, the one with its oceans and lands and millions and billions of _people_. But then he looked past Earth, up to the stars and galaxies and multitudes of universes lingering out of sight. Looked to the other planets orbiting the sun, ones too powerful and volatile for humans to even step foot on.

They fascinated him.

He blinks a little, eyes settling back on Niall. “Jupiter,” he says decisively.

“Biggest planet in the solar system. The king of the gods,” Niall says. “Did you know that?”

“I don’t know a lot of things,” Zayn murmurs. He stares up at the fake Jupiter, wonders how he missed the most powerful god infusing himself into the biggest planet, all that power wrapped up in mythology and science alike. 

“C’mon,” Niall says. He nudges Zayn’s shoulder a bit. “Let’s take ‘em to the observatory. I think yer gonna love it.”

So Niall leads and Zayn follows, Halley’s comet orbiting around the sun that seems to spill from the corners of Niall’s eyes, the edges of his smile.

\-----

The observatory sits on the roof of the museum. There are three different telescopes set up, so the kids spread out, line up to take turns at looking through the lenses. 

“You ever been to one?” Niall asks.

Zayn shakes his head. His exploration of the stars has mostly been delegated to books, to documentaries shown through the shoddy cable he and Louis steal from the neighbors and temperamental wifi on his laptop in the middle of the night. He feels like he’s missed something, seeing the universe so flat and two-dimensional for most of his life, like only now he’s getting the full picture.

“Never,” he says, gazing up at the clear sky and how the sun beams down on the roof. “Wish I had though.”

“Well now you can,” Niall tells him. He rolls the sleeves of his t-shirt up to combat the heat, and he reaches over to do Zayn’s too. His fingers burn a little where they touch Zayn’s skin, little pinpricks of heat that make Zayn flush. “’S amazing. It’s like--” Niall pauses, his mouth turned down a little as he parses out his words. “Everything’s so close, you know? Like, it feels like I could reach out and grab a star for you. Get you your own comet or somethin’.”

“You can see stars now?” Zayn asks him.

Niall shakes his head. They both turn to watch the kids at the telescopes, their stubby little fingers curling around the base. “Just sungazing now. Some, like, asteroids and stuff. Stargazing up here’s awesome at night though.”

“I can imagine,” Zayn says. He can’t help the wistfulness in his voice, can’t help but want to see the stars that close, like he could reach out and touch, be a part of the universe he’s been in love with for as long as he can remember. “Bet it’s amazing.”

Niall pauses, and when he talks again his voice is a little lower, more hesitant. “You could, like, you could come, you know,” he says. His fingers tap against the railing they’re leaning against, then against Zayns wrist, once. “I could sneak us up and show you. If you want, I mean.”

“You’d do that?”

Niall shrugs, like it’s nothing, and maybe it is, for him. Maybe it’s nothing. But his eyes are bright blue and staring straight back at Zayn, his mouth pulled into this small, lopsided thing that matches the way his fingers tap carefully against Zayn’s. “I would.”

“Let’s do it then.” Zayn says. He tilts his head back and squints at the sun. It’s equivalent to about ninety-three million miles away, and Zayn can feels its heat just as well as Niall’s with the way his body presses close to Zayn as they stare up at the sky. “Show me the stars, Niall.”

“You know when the first time I saw them was?” Niall asks. He shakes his head a little, pushing his hair back from where it’s fallen in his face. “Like, _really_ saw them, I mean?”

“Tell me.”

Niall laughs, this loud, ridiculous thing that could charm just about anyone if he tried hard enough. “’M giving all my secrets away,” he says. “Not giving you any reason to come back if I tell you everything, am I?”

Zayn shrugs, but he nudges Niall a little bit, keeps their shoulders together and hopes that Niall won’t move away and take his warmth with him. “I’ll come back. Halley’s Comet, you know?”

Niall raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t move away, but his fingers still, and he stares at Zayn like he’s something newly discovered. “Already orbiting around something though, aren’t you?”

Zayn jerks his hand back and frowns. He thinks about Louis, thinks about being someone’s Halley’s Comet and wondering if always coming back is the most restricting thing he could do. But Louis’s his Sirius, his brightest star, always has been.

Zayn’s never going to feel bad about always coming back to Louis.

“Shit, sorry,” Niall says. “I didn’t mean, like. I mean, _obviously_ I don’t know. I just assumed, because of the--you know.” He gestures towards Zayn’s tattoo, the comet that’s inked so permanently over the bone there. “’S none of my business, really.”

“It’s not,” Zayn says quietly.

He watches the kids look through the telescope lense, the wonder on their faces at being able to _see_ something you thought you could only imagine. The possibilities that open up at knowing there’s so much more than what’s within arm’s reach. 

That you could be a part of something so much bigger and powerful and vast.

“I was seven,” Niall says eventually. He glances over to see if Zayn’s listening and fidgets with the sun his name is printed on. “And my parents sat me down and told me they were gettin’ a divorce.” He shrugs a little, his mouth twisting up. “My mum said something about them not loving each other anymore, you know? And, like, that didn’t make any sense to me, really. Still doesn’t.”

Zayn doesn’t say anything, but takes the story for what it is and turns back around to face Niall. 

“Because, like, if you love someone that doesn’t stop, does it? You can’t just _stop_ loving them.” He rolls his eyes a little at himself but he keeps going. “I don’t know. Anyway, the last thing we all did together was this.” He gestures at the telescopes scattered across the rooftop. “Took me to this observatory in Ireland I’d been beggin’ to go to. And I looked through the scope and all I could think was there had to be something else out there, you know? In the stars or somethin’.”

Zayn swallows. He watches Niall fidget, watches the sun draw out the highlights in his blonde hair and the blue that burns hot in his eyes. “What do you mean?”

Niall shrugs. “It sounds stupid now, but I thought--I don’t know. There was another universe or something? In the stars or past the stars, I guess--where my parents were still together. Still loved each other.”

“That’s not stupid,” Zayn says quietly. He can feel his blood rushing through his veins, feel the heat of the sun and can hear his own voice saying the same thing before, about universes and alternate realities where things go the way they’re supposed to. “I don’t think that’s stupid.”

Zayn leans his arm back on the railing, nudging Niall a little where their skin touches. Niall’s got a sun strapped to his chest, this cute little thing with sunglasses sloppily drawn on it and his name written across with glitter glue. Zayn’s got a comet on his, his name written in in Niall’s sharp, pointy writing. He’s got Niall next to him, both of him staring up at the bright sun that beams down at them from light years away.

They’re both wishing for something bigger than what they have now, another universe or maybe more, worlds hidden away behind the clouds and written up in the stars. 

“D’ya think a comet can orbit around more than one thing?” Zayn asks him. More than one person, can return to all of them and still be the same.

Niall hums. He’s staring at the kids, making sure none of them run off or get too close to the edge of the roof. “’S the universe,” he answers eventually. “I think it can do whatever it wants.”

\-----

Zayn comes back to the flat with glitter stuck to his lashes and under his fingernails. He’s still got his nametag on, the flaming comet with his name scrawled across the front. Louis takes him in ( _my adventurous little comet_ , he says) before they sprawl out on the kitchen floor, hiding from the heat and whispering about their day.

“They made stars,” Zayn tells him. “The kids, I mean.” He fishes one out of his pocket, crumpled now, like an old star that’s seen more of the universe than anything else. “One of them made me one too.”

Louis laughs a little from where he’s got his face pushed into Zayn’s stomach. “Have you become a camp counselor while I’ve been distracted?”

“You haven’t been distracted,” Zayn says absently, automatically. “And _no_. ’S just--it’s fun, you know. I had fun.”

Louis looks up and digs his chin into Zayn’s stomach. “With the kids?”

“Yes,” Zayn says slowly. He doesn’t realize he’s started petting Louis until Louis’ eyes close, blissed out at the feel of Zayn’s fingers threading through his hair. “With the kids.”

Louis hums. He lets Zayn pet him for a few more minutes, their breathing even and quiet in their cramped, little kitchen. “I remember the first time you told me about comets, you know,” he says eventually. “The first year we moved out, do you remember?”

“Yeah, Lou.”

Louis buries his face back in Zayn’s shirt, his voice muffled and soft through the fabric. “You said they were made up of particles from the beginning of the universe. Carrying bits of--itself, kind of. Right?”

“I suppose.”

Louis nods. “I think,” he starts, slow and careful, “if I had a comet that always came back, I’d know it pretty well, wouldn’t I? I’d know every part of it, even the old parts, because it carried them around. I’d know it, right?”

“Lou--” Zayn swallows, rough, his fingers frozen until Louis nudges them and he resumes his petting, easy and careless. “Yeah. You would.”

“’M glad you had fun, that’s all I’m trying to say.” He reaches up and wipes some glitter off Zayn’s face, a smooth line of his thumb under Zayn’s eye until it’s gone. “With the kids.”

“With the kids,” Zayn agrees dumbly.

Louis closes his eyes again, and Zayn keeps petting him. They stay like that, stretched out on the tiled floor, a star and a comet orbiting around each other in the only way they know how.

\-----

The streetlights guide the way as Zayn makes his way to the museum. He can look up and see the stars; the sky’s clear tonight, they’d checked, and Zayn hikes his backpack up on his shoulder and walks faster.

Louis had still been asleep when Zayn had snuck out, making sure not to make too much noise as he’d fumbled for his clothes. They’re a bit too old to be sharing beds, but the world is big and vast, and Louis anchors Zayn to its rugged, jagged terrain. It helps, sometimes, for Zayn to curl himself around Louis’ sharp limbs and know he won’t float off into another galaxy in the middle of the night. They’d also only scraped enough money together for one good mattress, and Zayn had won that coin toss, so.

They'd just barely had enough money for the flat itself, their little ramshackle with the one firm, steady mattress. Louis still sleeps in his own room, most nights. But some nights they’re in Zayn’s, linking fingers and ankles and holding each down by the weight of their own tentative gravity. Because Louis' is Zayn’s bright, vulnerable Sirius and Zayn is Louis' loyal Halley's Comet and they are nothing if not drawn to each other, orbiting and inhabiting the same fragile universe.

He feels vaguely nostalgic about it now, sleep and his bed, especially when he’s walking through the humid streets under the cover of night, his boots clicking against the sidewalk too loud and his blood rushing in his ears. He’s still got bits of it clinging to him, sleep and heat and the tiredness it brings, stuck to the corners of his eyes and the slow, languid movements of his limbs. 

“ _Hey_ ,” someone says from behind Zayn, and he spins around so fast it makes him dizzy. He takes in Niall’s baggy trackpants first, comfy and loose, his blue long-sleeved shirt that colors him nicely, the way his hair hangs like waves against his forehead, like the whitewash curl of them against the instruction of the moon. 

“Aren’t you hot?” Zayn asks him. They fall into a stride, a _right, left, right_ that leaves Zayn struggling to keep up with Niall’s easy gait.

Niall shrugs. His mouth seems muted pink under the moonlight, the normal flush in his cheeks naught but dim smudges of color. “Nah, heat doesn’t get to me too much,” he says. “My mum used to say it was because I had sunlight in my veins.”

Zayn could believe that.

“I thought you were already going to be inside,” Zayn asks. 

Niall smiles a little crookedly, the heat under his cheeks brightening up. “Liam caught me trying t’ hide out,” he says. “You’ve got to meet him, mate. He’s like a puppy and yer granddad at the same time. It’s wicked.”

Zayn blinks at Niall, who’s still walking as if he didn’t just imply they had no way of getting into the museum. “Where are we going then?”

Niall keeps walking, but he turns around so he’s facing Zayn. “On the roof, aren’t we? Stargazing? Ringing any bells?”

“How are we getting _in_?”

Niall’s grin turns sharp. He gestures down a small road right down the side of the museum, slinking in the shadows ahead of Zayn. He stops next to a ladder or something, this rigged up, rusted thing that Zayn imagines could bring him closer to his death than the stars. Zayn watches Niall step on the base of it, testing its stability. It holds, and Zayn feels himself exhale too loud.

“Don’t tell me we’re--”

“Climbin’?” Niall asks. “Because we are.”

Zayn sags against the wall, staring hard at where Niall’s rolling the hem of his trackpants up and pushing his sleeves back.

“You ready?” he asks, and Zayn stares _harder_.

“’M not going,” he responds. “We’ll die.”

Niall scoffs. He sets one foot up on the contraption, because that’s what it is. A contraption. Despite what he says, the nighttime humidity is starting to get to him, the flush in his cheeks burning up and his hair a bit matted to his forehead. He pushes it back and holds a hand out to Zayn, and his fingers are clammy when Zayn takes it.

“I’ve done this a million times,” Niall says. He squeezes Zayn’s hand a little. It’s meant to be reassuring, maybe, but it just makes Zayn hold tight enough to make Niall wince. “Or more, like, four times? ’S not so bad.” 

He pulls Zayn closer, breath right up next to Zayn’s ear and voice echoing on the empty street. “Just hold onto me, yeah? I’ll be, like, I’ll be Earth, okay? And you can be the Moon, my Selene, pretty as a petal.”

Zayn huffs, but Niall’s already pulling him up, these heaving, upward steps that make Zayn’s heart race. “I’m not the moon,” he manages. “’M a comet.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Niall says. He’s a bit out of breath, from clinging to the _contraption_ and holding Zayn tight with the other. His biceps bulge under the thin material of his shirt and sweat clings to his forehead and the back of his neck. “Prettiest comet I ever seen, swear on me mum.” He smiles down at Zayn, quick and obnoxious, before he’s moving again. “I think you could be the moon. Broody and shit, isn’t she? Fierce as anything.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever been described as fierce,” Zayn mumbles. He stumbles a bit, boot getting stuck between two rusted, metal bars. He has a moment of panic, where his hand slips and he envisions Louis identifying his body at the morgue, before Niall grabs him tighter and hauls him up. “ _Fuck_.”

“Almost there,” Niall murmurs. He slows down though, gives Zayn a bit of time to get his bearings, to quell the rapid beating of his heart like it’s pumping right out of his chest. “Anyway, I think you could be the Moon. Constant, you know? Same as a comet.”

“’S not the same,” Zayn argues. His arms hurt and it’s too fucking hot for this and he isn’t the Moon, never has been. “Comets aren’t constant. Comets are periodic, you know? They leave, do their own thing, and then. I don’t know, they come back. Louis calls them loyal.”

“Louis.”

“Louis, my--” Zayn falters. His tongue trips over the right word, because friend isn’t enough. Brother’s the wrong one. _Sirius_ is for quiet nights in their flat, with Louis’ fingers wrapped around Zayn’s ankle, their voices hushed and secret and familiar. “Roommate,” Zayn says, and he feels it fall short. 

Niall’s eyebrows raise, and then he’s at the top, swinging a leg over the edge and reaching back down to pull Zayn up. 

“Ah,” he says quietly. “Louis.”

“Niall--”

“Shut up, man,” Niall says. He tilts his head back, eyes glittering under the starlight and the moon. “’S beautiful out.”

It is. The stars spill across across the midnight blue of the sky, unburdened by the clouds and clear as Zayn’s ever seen them. Zayn can feel the sweat cooling on his skin, the heat that simmers off Niall with as close as they’re standing, the clammy but sure grip of his fingers around Zayn’s.

“C’mon, Ursa Major,” Niall says. He pulls Zayn towards the telescope mounted in the middle of the roof, the biggest one up here. He fiddles with it a bit, deft fingers screwing around with the focus and tilting it back until it’s pointed right up at the stars. “Look through here.”

So Zayn does.

It’s a bit strange, seeing the universe that much closer, like Zayn could swipe his fingers through the air and come back with bits of stardust under his nails. He looks up and tries to get his bearings, tries to find organization in the chaos of bright, burning things in the sky.

“What do you see?”

“Big Dipper,” Zayn says eventually, when he catches glimpse of its handle, etching itself into its own little section of the universe. 

“What else?”

Zayn tilts the telescope a little, his eyes tracing up the handle until it leads him to something else. “Arcturus,” he breathes out.

Zayn can feel Niall move closer, his own gaze following the line of the telescope. “Use the handle of the Big Dipper to arc to Arcturus,” he intones, the same line Zayn saw displayed in the Big Dipper exhibit. 

“’S true, isn’t it?” Zayn says. He connects Arturus with the rest of the stars in Bootes’ constellation, shape filling out into the herdsman’s kite. “Right there above it.”

He moves back to let Niall look through, the lines of his back shifting as he moves along with the tilt of the lense. “What are you looking for?”

Niall steps back, blinking. “Nothing, really,” he says. “Or, everything. Kind of a trick question, isn’t it?”

“No, Niall.” 

“Shut up, Ursa Major.” 

“’S that all you’re gonna call me now?”

Niall rolls his eyes, playful, and Zayn watches him stretch out on the roof, the angle of his profile just as sharp at the angles of the constellations hung from the sky. Niall pats the space next to him, and Zayn wrinkles his nose. “Oh my god, you little diva. Fucking lie down with me.”

Zayn does, their legs stretched out together and the sky laid out above their heads. The Big Dipper and Arcturus shine down at them, shaped out of stars like clouds at noon in the middle of the day. 

“Not so bad, is it?” Niall asks. He’s got his head bent towards Zayn, nose sculpted out of marble or something. “Roughin’ it.”

Zayn laughs, the sound echoing off the roof and the emptying streets below them. “’S hardly roughing it. Just hoping m’ jeans don’t get too dirty. These were expensive.”

“ _Diva_ ,” Niall repeats. 

“You never answered my question.”

“What question was that, Ursa Major?”

“That one,” Zayn points out. “You gonna call me Ursa Major from here on out?”

Niall shrugs. His whole body moves with it, the slope of his shoulders pressing against Zayn’s. “What’s wrong with it? You don’t wanna be my Selene. What, am I only supposed to call you Comet or something?”

“ _Comet_ ,” Zayn says, his nose wrinkling up when he laughs. “No, ’m just wondering, I guess. Only thing anyone’s ever called me _is_ a comet.”

Niall hums. His hair looks nearly dark in this absence of the sun, the roots more pronounced and stark against his pale skin. “D’ya only have to be one thing? Just, like, there’s a billion different things in the universe, isn’t there?”

“Probably more than a billion.”

“For all you know,” Niall carries on, voice rising over Zayn’s, “you’re not like a comet at all. Maybe you’re an asteroid. Maybe you’re a fucking alien, is all I’m saying.”

“’M from Bradford,” Zayn points out. “Hardly outer space.”

Niall is quiet, and Zayn looks at the strands of his hair that stick to his forehead, the pink bow of his lips, the steady rise and fall of his chest. “Maybe you’re an undiscovered planet. Or, like, a new star or somethin’.” He shifts so his hands are pillowed under his head, knocking against Zayn every time he moves. “Maybe you’re Pluto,” He says contemplatively. “Think you’re one thing and, I don’t know, you’re somethin’ else, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Zayn says eventually. “Stranger things have happened,” and Niall makes a triumphant noise from somewhere deep in his throat.

They stare up at the sky, the billions (probably more, definitely more) of things stuck up there staring back down at them. It makes Zayn feel powerful, to be a part of this, to be another living thing in the vast, unreachable universe. He feels Niall beside him, and it feels like they’re two pieces of a bigger whole, connected like a constellation, like their own Orions and Andromedas. 

Eventually, he hears Niall beside him, the quiet intone of counting numbers before Zayn realizes what he’s doing. “Are you counting the stars?”

“You never done it before?” Niall asks. He gives up, his eyes turning to watch Zayn. “Used to do it before bed every night when I was a kid. Stayed up all night once and got to some stupid ass number, right? My dad was livid when he came to wake me up and there I was like a little twat, you know? Nose pressed up to glass and complaining because I’d ‘lost my spot’.” Niall laughs a little, the color in his face and neck brightening up again. “I was probably counting the same damn star all night.”

“Oh my god,” Zayn tells him. “You’re an idiot.”

“I _know_ ,” Niall says. “That’s when I thought I wanted to be an astronaut. So I could see the stars up close and count ‘em right.”

Zayn turns to look at him, the sunlight dimming in the corners of Niall’s eyes, flush under his skin like a burnt out sunset. He’d make a good astronaut, maybe, with all the bits of the universe he’s already got spilling out of him. “You’d be good.”

“I’d be shit,” Niall corrects. “I’d never want to come back, and you can only live on freeze-dried ice cream for so long, you know?”

“ _Gross_.”

“Hey, don’t knock it, man. ’S not so bad. Ate it straight for a week once when I was eleven.”

Zayn elbows him, tampering down the obnoxious laughter he feels in his throat. “You were the _weirdest_ kid ever. I mean that. What else did you do?”

“No way, yer not allowed to think ’m weird,” Niall whines. “That’s not a part of the plan.”

“C’mon,” Zayn says. He turns completely on his side, close enough that he can count the freckles littered across Niall like they’re stars themselves. “Tell me something else. One more thing.”

Niall blinks up at him, eyelashes fluttering against his skin. “Fine,” he sighs. “It’s a--a story, you know? Like the ones I’ve been tellin’ you about like Ursa Major and stuff. Only my dad told me, not any pretentious Greek gods or anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Right,” Niall starts. “So, you know how the moon has those little dips in its surface? The craters?” He waits for Zayn’s nod, his eyes wide and blue. “My dad used t’ say there were craters in the moon because people hid their secrets in it.” He smiles a little at the memory, the moonbeams hitting the corners of his mouth and the ends of his hair. “All them craters were just weighed down, you know? By people who were too tired to wish on stars so they just hid their secrets away.”

“D’ya believe that?”

Niall shrugs. “My dad doesn’t lie, does he? Nah, but, maybe? People wish on stars, don’t they? Send ‘em out into the unknown and hope something comes back. Maybe it’s the same with secrets. Only they don’t want them to come back, they want them to stay hidden.”

“Maybe they just want someone else to hold them for a while,” Zayn counters. “Maybe Luna--Selene, whatever. Maybe she does that for them.”

Niall stares at Zayn, eyes narrowing, mouth curling up. “Tell me yours.”

“What?”

Niall jerks his head up, in the direction of where the moon’s watching them, her craters filled with a million secrets. “Tell her a secret. And lemme hear it.”

“’S not a secret then, is it?”

“ _Please_.”

Zayn thinks for a moment. It feels like all his secrets have been exposed at some point, him and Louis in their cramped, comfortable flat or sat in the lounge chairs in the library or _somewhere_. It doesn’t really feel like Zayn has secrets anymore, not when he and Louis have been orbiting each other nearly their whole lives, their edges constantly pulled around the same center. 

But Niall’s different. Niall’s still new, and Zayn can give him bits of himself like the Sun does the Earth, like the Earth does the Moon, like a comet does every few years, bringing old and new flaming through the atmosphere.

“When I was younger, like, ten or something, my mum told me I could be anything I wanted,” Zayn says. “Like, I knew that, I guess? But when she told me, I don’t know. First time I’d ever really thought about it.”

“What did you wanna be?”

“Dead,” Zayn says promptly. He laughs at the look on Niall’s face, the frown that etches deep on his features. “Because I wanted to know if I’d turn into a star once I was. I was an idiot, I know.”

“Oh my god, you were so fucked up.”

“ _I know_ ,” Zayn says. “She cried for like a week when I told her. I felt awful.”

“Jesus Christ, Ursa Major,” Niall mumbles. “C’mon, what do you want to be now. Hopefully not still dead.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. He watches the smile linger on Niall’s face, how the moonlight softens him up even more. “I want, I don’t know. Be a part of it?” He falters a little, gathering his words. “Sometimes I feel so disconnected from it, you know? _The universe_. Like, I’m here, and everything else is--” He waves his arm a little, trying his best to encapsulate everything seen and unseen that has built a home in some universe, somewhere. “Out there.”

“You are a part of it, you brooding shit,” Niall says. “You’re in it right now. You’re literally breathing the universe in, you know. You’re on the only planet confirmed to contain life, and you’re, like, living. You’re just as a part of the universe as I am here, talking to you about it.”

“Sounds easy when you put it like that.”

“It is easy,” Niall says. “You’re like, as much of the universe as Mars is, I guess. Whether you’re my Selene or an alien or my own, complicated Ursa Major.”

“And what if I’m a comet?” Zayn asks. “A comet, and that’s it.”

“Then you’ll be the best goddamn comet this side of the Milky Way,” Niall says. 

“You didn’t say _your_ comet,” Zayn points out.

Niall sighs, blues eyes blinking back up at the sky. “You’ll be whoever’s comet you wanna be, won’t you? Orbit around whoever the fuck you want.” He huffs a little, chest rising too fast. “Now shut up and let me get back to counting these damn things, would you?”

“Can I help?”

Niall glances at him. His hair’s cooled all weird, little waves that threaten to fall in his eyes. “You do left, I’ll do right?”

“Deal,” Zayn says.

They count. Until Zayn’s eyes go dry and Niall’s blinking to stay awake and the Earth tilts on its axis, orbiting around the Sun.

Slow and steady and constant.

They count.

\-----

The rooftop becomes a thing they do sometimes. Not often, because the climbing contraption terrifies Zayn and because Niall doesn’t really want to risk losing his job if they get caught.

It becomes a thing all the same though, and Zayn finds himself slipping out of bed on those clear nights, quiet and careful, pushing the strands back from Louis’ face or sneaking a look in Louis’ room before he slips out the door. He watches Louis curl up on his side, drifting over to the left where Zayn has vacated the warmth.

It’s maybe the third time, maybe the fourth, when Zayn sits up at his usual time to make the climb off the roof and Niall grabs his arm and keeps him down. He usually tries to go a little bit before dawn, back in bed before the sun comes up, but Niall stops him with a, “I wanna show you somethin’,” so Zayn lies back down against the cold rooftop.

“’S not gonna be like your dick or anything, is it?” he asks, mostly to see the crinkles by Niall’s eyes when he laughs, like the tail of a comet with the flame it leaves behind.

“Is this what happens when you don’t get any sleep?”

“Dunno,” Zayn teases. He is feeling a little slap happy, eyes tired but brain racing, the points of contact where Niall’s fingers curl around his sparking like wildfire. “You tell me.”

Niall turns his head to look at Zayn. His eyelids are drooping, the smile that lingers on his face tilted slow and lazy. “’S not my dick, man,” he says. “I wouldn’t just spring that on you. It needs, like, a proper introduction.”

“Nice.”

“Oh my god, I just wanna show you Venus,” Niall says. “Can I do that? Or should I just whip out my _dick_ instead.”

Zayn shoves him a little, both of them tired and ending up tangled up together when they don’t feel like moving back apart. “I’ve never seen Venus in real life, obviously,” Zayn says. “Show me.”

Niall hums, his arm lifting up and his finger pointing towards the sky. “You can only see her right before dawn sometimes,” he says. “Look a bit to the right, do you see?”

Zayn looks. He sees the stars, the image of them embedded bone deep, but he squints his eyes a bit and _yes there_ , there she is. Bright and glowing and an entirely different planet orbiting in their line of sight. “ _Shit_.”

“Cool, right?” He catches the tilt of Niall’s smile out of the corner of his eye, the way his eyes glimmer under the hint of pink in the sky from the beginning of the rising sun. “Goddess of love and beauty,” he says. “Did you know?”

“Think so,” Zayn says. He shrugs a little, leaning back and staring up at the gleaming planet staring back at them. “Tell me something else.”

Niall is quiet for a moment, his fingers drawing patterns over Zayn’s. “She’s the brightest thing in our solar system,” he says finally. “Other than the Sun and Moon.”

“Of course the Sun and the Moon are the brightest,” Zayn says fondly. 

“Yep,” Niall agrees. “But Venus isn’t too far off, is she? Can see her plenty bright now.” He yawns, and his words are sleepy and slurred enough that Zayn has to strain to understand him. “They call ’er the Morning Star, sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Because you can see her best before sunrise,” Niall tells him. “When the stars start disappearing, she shines brighter than anything.”

Zayn blinks up at her, at _Venus_ , gleaming white before the Sun comes up and snuffs her out. She’s one of Zayn’s astronomy books come to life, set right before his eyes and it seems like he should be able to reach out and touch, pluck her right out of the sky with how close she seems right now. He can’t, but he feels powerful enough for it, like he could reach out and touch even the furthest corners of the universe right now.

“Thank you,” he says. It’s quiet and tired and slow, rumbling in his chest a little. “For showing me, I mean.”

“’Course,” Niall mumbles. He stumbles to his feet, keeps his fingers intertwined around Zayn’s, a complicated mess of constellations on their own, tangled up and near exhaustion. “Anything for you, Ursa Major.” He shuffles a little, feet scraping against the rooftop. “What’re you up to right now?”

Zayn raises his eyebrows. His phone says it’s nearing arse o’clock in the morning, and he’s already imagining curling up on his side of the bed, burrowing under the covers and into Louis’ leftover warmth. “Sleep,” he says. “Why?”

Niall shrugs. He’s flushed at the tips, too many layers and too much sunlight of his own, rising to the surface with the sunrise. His hair gleams on its own when he runs his fingers through it, limp and floppy after their long night. “You should come over for a bit. M’ roommate will be waking up for work. He makes a mean batch a’ pancakes.” 

“’S not even done being sunrise yet,” Zayn says. He bites his lip, deliberating. He’s thinking of his bed, of closing his eyes and drifting off for a few hours. He’s also thinking of this, here, seeing bits of the universe with Niall, the warmth of his hands curling around Zayn’s own. “What if I like waffles?”

“Then you’ll have waffles,” Niall tells him. “D’ya want me to beg you or somethin’?”

“Would you?”

“No, probably not.” He pulls Zayn towards the edge, already swinging a leg over so he can climb down. “C’mon then, ’s not too far.”

The pavement clicks under Zayn’s boots as they walk back. The streets are still, most of the city still asleep, and Zayn envies them for a moment. Longer than a moment, before Niall’s shoulder bumps against his and he’s jolted back to the present.To their observable point of contact, to the way their strides match, both of them pushed to the brink of awed exhaustion as Venus still burns bright behind their eyelids.

The flat isn’t far, and Niall jogs ahead a little, key jiggling in the lock before the door pushes open. His shoes thump against the wall where he kicks them off before he’s running through the flat, full on yelling at someone to _wake the fuck up_. Zayn’s left standing in the doorway, so he sets his boots down next to Niall’s and wanders into the flat.

The flat is cozy in the way the walls are painted warm yellow, paint peeling where the edges of the ceiling and floor meet. The wood creaks soft under Zayn’s feet as he pads into the living room in just his socks, fingers reaching out to touch the edges of the pictures set up in there, all situated in cheap, makeshift frames. There are a bunch of Niall, wild-eyed and peroxide blonde, sunlight infusing the corners of the photographs. He’s got braces in some of the pictures, teeth bracketed like a little kid, the boxy squares of color showing when he smiles. 

There are some of Liam, who Niall’s pointed out in the museum before, his eyes crinkled up shy and happy as he smiles into the camera. His hair’s flopping down into his eyes in some of them, and Zayn has the faintest urge to push it back, like he does with Louis when he’s a few weeks past time for a cut. There are some of a boy Zayn’s never seen, lanky and tall, his own curls hanging over his forehead, his cheeks dimpling as he poses in front of the camera. The entire living room’s filled with pictures, snapshots of Niall’s life, scraps of his own niche in the universe, framed and displayed for everyone to see.

There’s heavy footsteps behind him, and Zayn turns around quick, fingers still curled around the edges of the picture he’s got in his hands. It’s just Niall, piggybacking on some bloke’s back, grin wide and tired where it stretches across his face. It’s the same guy from the photographs, prettier in person, like most things are. 

“This is my cabbie, Harry,” Niall teases. He nudges Harry towards Zayn, reaching out a little so he can reach out and touch the collar of Zayn’s t-shirt where it lies soft against his skin. “Cabbie, meet Ursa Major.”

“Harry,” the guy says. He grips Zayn’s hand, a proper handshake that makes Zayn laugh.

“Zayn,” he says. “Nice to meet you. Sorry Niall woke you up to meet me, I guess.”

Harry shakes his head, body shifting to keep Niall steady on his back. “Had to be up anyway for work,” he says. “’S a pleasure to meet all the strays Niall brings home.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Niall cuts in. “I don’t bring home strays. I brought you a constellation, look at ’im. Beauty, isn’t he?”

Harry nods in agreement, curls mussed and pushed behind his ears. He nods towards the kitchen, Niall still draped over his back, and he glances back to make sure Zayn’s following. “Niall says you’re a waffle man.”

Zayn shrugs, making a face when Niall turns around and raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, I mean, if it’s not, like, a problem.”

“Harry can cook anything,” Niall tells him. “He made me broiled lobster tails at three in the morning once.”

“Because you were drunk and wouldn’t leave me alone about it,” Harry tells him. He winks at Zayn, struggling to grab things from the cabinet while still steadying Niall on his back. “Niall, get off. ’M gonna drop you.”

Niall frog leaps onto the counter, his legs swinging against the wood. “’M too tired to stay upright on me own,” he whines. He holds his arms out towards Zayn, soft and sleepy looking, eyelids drooping. “C’mere.”

So Zayn does. It’s like seeing another part of Niall, the intricacies of his own complex planet, see him made softer around the edges by being in his own flat, the way the whole place seems to settle around him, make him looser. So Zayn settles too, into the wide V of Niall’s legs, their faces pushed close and Niall’s body heat drifting into Zayn’s orbit. 

“Hold me up,” Niall demands. He drops his head on Zayn’s shoulder, breathing puffing out against the sharp cut of Zayn’s collarbone, his words muffled. “Thank you.”

“Niall,” Harry chides. He’s mixing eggs and butter into a bowl, eyebrows pulled down in concentration. Zayn realizes, belatedly, that Harry’s only in his pants, his morning wood pushing obscenely at the clingy material of his briefs. “Be nice to your guest.”

“He’s not a guest,” Niall murmurs, word ghosting over Zayn’s skin, leaving shivers in their wake. 

“What am I then?” Zayn asks him. He risks lifting a hand to Niall’s hair, fingers threading through the strands like he does with Louis. Niall pushes into the touch, a satisfied hum rumbling in his chest.

He shrugs lazily at Zayn’s question, his body slumping as Zayn kneads gently at his scalp. “Ursa Major,” he says eventually. “My Selene.”

“Not a comet?” Zayn asks quietly. 

Niall shrugs again. He pushes his head into Zayn’s fingers a little more, almost purring when Zayn tugs at the tip of his ears, the short hairs at the base of his scalp. “Not _my_ comet.” He grabs at Zayn’s hips before Zayn even thinks about tensing or pulling away, his fingers digging into the skin there. “Don’t move.”

Zayn swallows hard, the movement catching enough to make him wince. “’M not,” he manages. “I won’t.”

“Good,” is all Niall says though, his voice still coming out soft and muffled in the material of Zayn’s shirt. He seems to go to sleep, but Zayn can still feel Niall’s fingers on his hips, his thumbs rubbing little circles there, calm and constant. He stays quiet though, body still except for that, the gentle caresses he leaves behind, how his nails don’t press in quite deep enough to leave little moon crescents, but Zayn can imagine the sharp sting if he did, if Niall wanted to.

Harry turns on the radio while he cooks. His fingers move deft and knowledgeable as he stirs and pours, bumping hips against Zayn’s once or twice when he shimmies past. He doesn’t say anything about Niall, the way his head slumps on Zayn’s shoulder, the possessive grip he keeps on his waist, just ruffles Niall’s hair a few times, eliciting a few tired grunts that reverberate against Zayn, vibrate against his bones. 

So Zayn leans against Niall and the counter, listens to the soft music playing through the speakers, the raspy sound of Harry singing along to the words, the way the spoon hits the edge of the bowl, the way the batter sizzles over the heat. It’s their own, temporary universe, Harry and Zayn orbiting around Niall’s muted sunlight, Niall and Zayn tethering themselves to the careful, precise way Harry tilts his axis around the kitchen, Harry and Niall adjusting to Zayn’s presence in their flat, shifting the edges of their moons and stars to make room.

“Food’s ready,” Harry says eventually. He disappears into the living room to set up drinks on the coffee table, carrying a pitcher of something that looks like homemade lemonade in one hand and cups in the others.

Niall barely stirs, fingers still making lazy figure-eights over Zayn’s hipbones. “C’mon,” Zayn says. “Thought you wanted to eat.”

“Don’t wanna _move_ ,” NIall mutters. “Why’re you so fuckin’ comfy?” He lifts his head up, blinking slow at Zayn, eyes bleary and dazed. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Zayn says. “Are you gonna get up now?”

Niall groans a little. He headbutts at Zayn’s shoulder before he leans back, squinting at the bright lights of the kitchen and glaring. “’M up, I’m up.” He shuffles ahead of Zayn into the living room, throwing a sharp punch at Harry’s shoulder as he passes. “That’s fer fuckin’ with my hair.”

Harry blows him a kiss, pink lips pushed into a twisted smirk as he hands him his plate. “ _Someone’s_ grumpy about not being able to sleep on their boy, aren’t they?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Niall mutters. He glances back at Zayn, eyebrows raised. “You gonna eat?”

Zayn sinks into the well-worn sofa next to Niall, Harry lazily draped over the armchair across from them. The music still plays in the kitchen, the soft sound drifting out and making Zayn even more sleepy. The food doesn’t help, because it’s heavy and sweet, settling in Zayn’s belly as he slumps a little further into the cushions. 

Niall shifts closer to Zayn, head tilted against Zayn’s shoulder as he balances his plate on his thighs. He’s small and curled up like this, more like sunset than sunrise, his shoulder slumping over as he fights sleep. “Saw Venus this morning, Haz,” he says tiredly. “From the rooftop.”

Harry hums interestedly. He’s playing on his phone, but he glances up at Niall, eyes bright green with the sunlight that splays through the room. “Which one’s that again?”

“Christ,” Niall mutters. “The second one from the Sun, Harry. Right before Earth.”

Harry hums again, takes a huge bite of his food before he decides to talk. “You’d think Earth would just burn up, wouldn’t you? That close to the Sun, and all.”

Zayn feels Niall turn his head even more into Zayn’s shoulder, burrowing down so he’s mostly pushed into Zayn’s chest. He’s warm and sleep-rumpled somehow, all his corners smoothed down. “Make him shut up,” Niall murmurs. 

“’S not a bad question,” Zayn tells him. “D’ya know why we don’t just burst into flames?”

Niall shakes his head, voice rumbling. “Besides the atmosphere? No. But he doesn’t actually care,” he says. “He’ll forget he ever asked in about ten minutes.”

“ _Heyyy_ ,” Harry cuts in. “Just because ’m not ready to take a flight to Mars--”

“Ya can’t _do_ that anyway, Harry,” Niall says, voice rising. “All yer fancy flight miles can’t get you that far.”

“Just because you wasted yours last summer--”

“Was not a _waste_ \--”

“Does not mean you get to mock me for still having mine,” Harry says decisively. “’S no way to act in front of your guest, is it?”

Niall sighs. His eyes are still shut, hair in disarray, his skin flushed. “Don’t you have to go to work?”

“Yeah, actually,” Harry says. He grabs his plate, then Niall’s, then Zayn’s, hands balancing them all precariously. He nods at Zayn, cheeky smile etched one of his dimples. “See you ‘round, Zayn, yeah? Don’t be a stranger.” He smiles at Niall, bending down carefully to press a kiss to his hair. “Love you, sunshine.”

NIall sighs again, prying his eyes open to stare at Harry. Zayn can see the smile lurking in the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth quirks up, barely perceptible. “Love you too, stupid arse.”

He disappears into the kitchen, and Zayn listens to the clank of dishes being set in the sink before Harry’s heavy footsteps are padding back down the hall. 

“He’s gonna fuck with my stuff,” Niall mutters. “I can feel it.”

Zayn laughs, quiet. Niall’s got his eyes closed again, fingers tapping a beat against Zayn’s stomach. Zayn feels himself shudder against it, the tickling feeling, the feeling of Niall in general, this close to him. “Thanks for bringing me over.”

Niall nods. His breathing’s slow, the rise and fall of his chest slower than Zayn’s seen it all morning. “You’re welcome. Next time it’s your turn though.”

“Next time?”

Niall blinks up at him. His eyes are rimmed red, and Zayn imagines his own look the same, the bone deep sleepiness slowing him down. “You ditchin’ me, Ursa Major?” he asks. “Didn’t take you for the love ’em and leave ’em type.”

“’M _not_ ,” Zayn says. “Love them and leave them. Jesus, Niall.”

Niall laughs tiredly, the sound stretched thin. “Well then, next time, okay? Your place.”

Zayn nods, voice catching in his throat. Niall doesn’t look away though, doesn’t give him a second to get it together, and the comet inked on Zayn’s skin burns like a brand under that gaze. “Promise,” Zayn manages. “My place next time, okay.”

Niall sighs. He moves over a little, shifting so one leg’s thrown over Zayn’s lap, and he’s straddling him, thumbs pressed into the soft skin of Zayn’s neck. “I don’t care, you know.”

“About what?” Zayn asks him. He’s trying to adjust to feeling Niall like this, being close to Niall like _this_ , his little bum pressing down on Zayn’s lap, his sleepy eyes focused on Zayn. He grabs onto Niall’s waist for something to do with his hands, digging into his soft stomach, his hips. 

Niall shrugs. “About you being someone’s comet,” he says. He rolls his eyes at the way Zayn’s eyes widen, thumbs going back to those familiar figure-eights, reassuring and careful. “You’re Ursa Major, my Selene, I don’t know.” He makes an annoyed sound in his throat, impatient like he wants Zayn to just _get it_. “I saw Venus with you this morning, okay? I got to see another planet and watch the sunrise with you and that’s the sappiest shit I’ve ever done, okay? You can be someone else’s--fuck, you can be Louis’ comet. You’re my Selene, you’re Ursa Major, you’re the Big Dipper to my Arcturus, you fuck.”

Zayn watches him, the way his throat moves, the dim blue in his eyes, how his mouth curves. He looks wild like this, like a messy constellation struggling for a shape, like someone’s just thrown him up in the sky. He glares a little at Zayn, fierce, bright sunlight, peeking through all the cracks in Zayn’s surface like an anchored, burning star. Zayn can’t catch his breath like this, not when Niall’s taken all the air in the room, used it all up to keep his own light going. 

“Say something,” Niall tells him. “Christ.”

“What do you want me to say?” Zayn croaks out. What _can_ he say, really, that Niall won’t eclipse, that won’t get smothered under the flame that burns the flush under Niall’s skin. 

“You’re my Selene,” Niall says again. “You’re a stupid constellation that drives me crazy with all your fuckin’ angles and stars. What am I? To you.”

Zayn breathes him in. “You’re--” _Sunlight incarnate. Maybe the sun itself. Jupiter, with so many moons I can’t keep up,_ Zayn thinks. _Venus, one of the brightest things in the universe. Craters of the moon, to hold all my stupid, silly secrets. A black hole, swallowing me up._ “I don’t know,” Zayn says. “You’re Niall. You show me the universe and you smell like Mars cookies, and if I looked into your bag right now I bet I’d find a stash of them.” Zayn shrugs, shivers, tries to focus his thoughts when they’re swirling like this, his brain like a galaxy that holds too much at once. “’M not like you,” he says eventually. “I don’t know what you are.”

Niall exhales, settling himself in Zayn’s lap. “Yer gonna have to decide,” he says quietly. “But I can be that, for now. Niall, I mean. _Your_ Niall.”

“My Niall,” Zayn agrees. “’S that okay?”

“’S okay,” Niall says. “’M gonna kiss you.”

He tastes sweet, when he leans in, like syrup and butter and the strawberries Harry cut off. His mouth moves rough and demanding against Zayn’s, his fingers digging into his shoulders as he tries to steady himself. Zayn tightens the grip around his little waist, pulls Niall closer and moves back against him. 

He can hear slamming drawers down the hall, Harry’s heavy feet padding over the floor. He can hear the birds outside, the incessant chirping that comes with sunrise, with the first sunlight that trickles down and warms the ground. He can hear the distant sound of the city awakening, cars starting, businesses opening, this side of Mother Earth rumbling to life.

It all falls away through, out of his orbit where Niall’s like his own first warm rays of the day, lighting him up from the inside. He presses close and kisses Niall hard, everything narrowing down to their little points of contact, skin sparking at the touch. 

Niall pulls back and rest his head on Zayn’s shoulder, his breathing rough and his chest heaving. His fingers tremble a little where they’re lying hot against Zayn’s skin, his sunlight radiating through the tips.

Zayn breathes him in, blinking a few times and wondering at the thought of people telling him all those years ago not to look too closely at the sun.

\-----

The flat is quiet when Zayn gets back. All the lights are off, so Zayn doesn’t bother with any stumbling down the hallway, peeking through the bedroom door. Louis’s still curled up in bed, same as he was when Zayn left, the covers pulled up over his head and his feet sticking out from the bottom.

Zayn exchanges his jeans for shorts, climbing carefully into the bed without moving the mattress too much. Louis turns toward him anyway, eyes blinking open, the blue in shadows. 

“Where were you?” he rasps out. “Woke up for some water and you were gone.”

He pushes into Zayn’s space, fingers reaching out and running over his sides, coming up to hold his face still while Louis runs eyes over him. Zayn smiles tiredly, fingers curling around Louis’ and giving them a squeeze. “’M fine,” he answers quietly. “Went out with Niall.”

Louis hums, but he stops checking Zayn over, his hand resting casually on Zayn’s waist. “I should have known,” he says. “You were out having a rooftop romance.”

“Rooftop romance,” Zayn repeats. “How long did that take you?”

“Few days,” Louis admits. He pushes closer, and Zayn is grateful for how sleep-soft he is, how easy it is for him to align himself with Zayn like their orbit’s not been knocked off kilter. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yes, _Mum_ ,” Zayn teases. He pushes Louis’ hair back from his eyes, grinning when he wrinkles his nose. “Missed you terribly.”

Louis makes a satisfied noise, his eyes closing as he shifts around and gets comfortable again. “Bet Niall appreciated that.”

It’s a throwaway remark, because Zayn knows Louis likes he knows himself, knows Louis like he knows the stars of Ursa Major, knows the miles between the Sun and the Earth and everything in between. Knows that Louis is a lot of things, sharp and possessive and kind and _Sirius_ , but not cruel. 

Still.

“Lou,” Zayn starts, careful, and Louis’ eyes pop open, only to narrow. “Can I ask you something?”

“When have you ever asked permission?” Louis asks. “Zayn--”

“No, I know,” Zayn cuts in. And he does. But this is new, this is more than them and the selfish orbit they started all those years agos, their own little universe carved into the galaxy. “I just--you know I’m your comet, right?” He takes a deep breath, shuts his eyes and feels Louis’ steady gaze on him. “Your Halley’s Comet, you know? Always will be.”

Louis is quiet. Zayn can’t see his face, for once doesn’t know what it holds. “I know,” Louis says eventually. “Zayn, I _know_.”

“I’ll always come back,” Zayn tells him. He presses close to Louis, breathes in his scent of soap and shampoo and steadies himself. “Always.”

Louis lets out a tired, sharp laugh, his fingers coming up to thread through Zayn’s thick hair. “I never doubted that you would,” he says. “You’re my Halley’s Comet and I’m your Sirius. ’M gonna be the only fucking star that never dies out.”

“I never thought you would,” Zayn murmurs. 

They’re quiet for a few minutes, balance restored, axis tilting back and spinning the way it should. Zayn anchors himself to Louis’s steady breathing, thinks of all the pieces of the universe falling together and all the pieces that could ripple apart. Wonders if the Sun ever thinks of the other stars in the sky, ever gives any thought to the bright burning of Sirius when it burns so much more. 

“Does this mean we have to stop sharing beds then? S’only you hog the covers, so maybe it’s for the best.” Louis asks eventually. 

Zayn huffs out a laugh, the sound extinguished under the heavy burden of all the blankets. “Not yet,” he says. He thinks of _next time_ and _your place_ and wonders where all the lines of the constellation will cross, what shape theirs will end up. Wonders if any of the stars will burn out before he knows. “Eventually,” he tells Louis. “Maybe.”

“Love you, Comet,” Louis breathes out. And he holds Zayn together while he thinks, his own bright Sirius in the sky, burning hot enough to make anyone tremble.

“Love you too,” Zayn says, Halley’s Comet and Sirius shifting slightly in their place in the universe.

\-----

There’s this place across town, this little hole in the wall Zayn and Louis found back when they were both trying out uni. Louis still is, sort of, a few classes here and there, enough that he’ll graduate in the next year or so. They’ll throw a party or something when it happens, get another batch of stupid fucking tattoos to mark more time passed, the two of them living in each other’s pockets.

It wasn’t really Zayn’s thing, the structure of university, the attention he was forced to give it. He likes studying the universe because it doesn’t rush him. It takes the sun eight minutes and twenty seconds to light up Earth, takes four years for the nearest star to gain enough brightness to see from here. It takes Halley’s Comet 75 years to make its next orbit, collecting bits of stardust and asteroids and astrojunk. 

Zayn thinks he can take his time with everything else, too. 

He’d quit before he’d really got ahead, taking up shop in the record store, watching the passage of time on the watch his mum had given him for his thirteenth birthday. It’s not really where he wants to be, plucking through dusty vinyls and handing out The Beatles vinyls to whatever pretentious fuck walks through the door. It’s better than being stuck in a classroom though, set at a pace he can’t control, unable to absorb the knowledge of the universe at the speed it’s already set. 

So he’d quit, and Louis stayed, but both of them still went to Jo’s every so often, following the smell of curry down the stairs and tucking themselves in a booth in the corner.

It’s where he’s heading now, jolted by the moving bus, Louis’ knee pressed up close as they wait for their stop. They’ve got a pair of headphones between them, the rumble of _Under the Dome_ playing out in the speakers. It’s boring Zayn to hell and back, but Louis sits with rapt fascination, tapping out a restless rhythm against Zayn’s thigh as he listens to the book. 

It’s been a while since they’ve done this, just the two of them slinking around town like they used too. Zayn tries to think of the last time, and it was probably that Life On Mars exhibit that popped up a few months ago. He’d been ready to spend more than he really had to get in, but Louis has a way of getting what he wants, and Zayn has a way of cleaning himself up, and they’d both slipped in for free and without detection both nights they’d gone. 

Louis bumps his shoulders, smile small and pulling his mouth up. “Been awhile,” he murmurs low, like they’d both been thinking the same thing. “Hasn’t it?”

Zayn nods a little, wincing when they go over a bump. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Think Jo’ll give us a bowl on the house? Like old times?”

Louis snorts. He presses the button for their stop, standing up and grabbing Zayn for balance. “’Course she will,” he says. “I’m her favorite, and we come as a package deal.”

“Modest.”

“Never have been,” Louis tells him, and Zayn thinks _brightest star in the sky_ and huffs out a laugh, follows the streak of light Louis leaves behind for Zayn to find.

“Never have been,” he repeats, quiet enough that Louis can’t hear. 

\-----

Jo does give them a bowl of her famous curry on the house. It’s the hottest she’s got, and it burns Zayn’s nose when she sits in down at the table, their little booth in the back of her place. 

“Hope you boys haven’t been up to any trouble,” she says, and Louis laughs, knocks Zayn’s elbow and waggles his eyebrows a bit. “It’s been ages since I’ve seen you.”

“ _Well_ ,” Louis starts, and Zayn pinches him right from the get, tipped off by the gleam in Louis’ eyes, like his own little stars that make up his bigger, brighter one. “Zayn’s been busy having a romance.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. Jo eats it up, because Louis _is_ her favorite, pinching his cheeks and sending a look at Zayn. “He’s not left you to fend for yourself, has he? You tell Jo, and I’ll have ’im up by his ears, I will.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Zayn says. “Louis’s not had to take care of himself since you’ve known him, you know.”

Jo points a finger at him, and Zayn blinks at it. She loves the both of them, but everyone has at least one soft spot for Louis, and Zayn’s got enough to last him a lifetime, buried between his ribs and the downbeat of his thumping heart. “It better stay that way,” Jo says. She leans in, pinching Zayn’s cheek now, running kitchen warm fingers through his hair. She leans close, and she smells like curry, like spice and chicken and peppers. “He needs you, you know.”

Zayn smiles a little. She’s always been good to them, two messy bits of the sky crashing into orbit, landing in a heap in her shop all that time ago. “Yeah, I know, Jo.”

She laughs a little, fingers cuffing Zayn’s ears. Her voice drops to a whisper now, secret smile tucked behind her hair. “You’ll have to come back and tell me all about your new boy, yeah? I’ll even pretend I won’t gossip to Louis about everything you tell me.”

“Cheers,” Zayn says, but he feels his laugh rattle against his bones, as warm and familiar as the curry heating his chest and lining his belly. “I’ll come ‘round, yeah,” he says, and he means it, feels happiness spill out of his like sunshine, bursting at the tips of his fingers. “Thanks, Jo.”

Louis leans against him when she leaves, links their ankles together and breathes out heavy. Zayn can feel the heat on his breath, the sweetness of the sangria Jo’d left on the table clinging to him. 

“Think you might be taking my spot,” Louis says, slow and teasing. “She’ll only want to talk about your budding romance now.” 

Zayn shrugs. The sangria tastes too sweet to him, heavy on his tongue. He nibbles at the pineapples floating in the pitcher instead, smiling when Louis scoffs. “Hardly think either me or Niall would call it a _budding romance_ ,” Zayn says. “Stop calling it that. This isn’t Pemberley.” 

Louis just hums, and that’s meant no for at least half as long as Zayn’s known him, the vibration in his chest as good as an outright refusal. Stubborn Sirius. “D’ya remember the first time we found this place?” Louis asks instead. “Thought she was gonna kick us out, the way she went on about the smoke.”

“Kick you out, you mean,” Zayn corrects. “You _are_ the reason she’s put up the no smoking signs.”

Louis bites his lip, and Zayn counts back _five, four, three_ until Louis cracks, laugh coming out raspy and quiet and muffled into Zayn’s shoulder. “Her _face_ \--” he gets out, before Zayn breaks too, both of them holding the other up, muted giggles echoing in their glasses. “Fuck, I’m lucky she didn’t call the police. You would have bailed me out, wouldn’t you, Zayner?”

Zayn snorts a little, jostling Louis. He’s got a comet needled in his skin that says as much, periodic and sure and _loyal_. “Be sharing a cell, wouldn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, quiet. His laugh trickles off slow, settling into a smile on his face, the crinkles by his eyes jagged like their own constellation. “Yeah.” He shakes their ankles a little, where they’re tangled together under the table. “My own Halley’s Comet.”

“My own Sirius,” Zayn murmurs back, like a mantra, like a promise they’d made unknowingly, running through library stacks all those years ago. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

“Best in the universe,” Louis agrees. He takes another sip of his drink, makes a face at the sweetness but keeps going. “You know how I knew you were Halley’s Comet?” he asks suddenly and Zayn blinks, because Louis’ told him a million times about being loyal, about coming _back_.

“Because I always come back to you,” Zayn says.

Louis shakes his head, and his head droops a little, body leaning a little heavier into Zayn. “Because I stopped being interested in the universe when I was twelve,” Louis tells him. “And you never stopped. You used to tell me about the stars when your Dad took us camping, you remember?”

Zayn nods, watching the pink flush up in Louis’ cheeks, listening to the slow, syrupy rasp when he talks. 

“And even when we got older, you never stopped.” He shrugs a little, swallow down another mouthful and smacks his lips. “You took astronomy when I wanted to take Chem, remember? Because Doniya said the Chem teacher was easy. You took it by yourself and you read your textbook on the weekends and it drove me _crazy_. It drove me mad because, because--” He stumbles a little, and Zayn knocks their ankles against the booth, reminds Louis that Zayn’s got a comet burned into him, because of Louis, because of _this_.

“Because I thought you were going to leave me behind,” Louis manages. “I thought you were going to float up to space and I’d never find you. I’d have to start dreaming about those romantically ridiculous alternate universes you’re always going on about, which is still ridiculous, by the way.”

“They’re _not_ \--”

“But you didn’t,” Louis barrels on, and Zayn snaps his teeth together. “You never did. You went off and learned about planets and asteroids and galaxies, and then you came back and told me about it. You--you went and collected all these pieces of the universes, you know, collecting stardust under your fingernails or summat. And then you’d come back and you’d tell me,” Louis says. 

“I wanted you to know,” Zayn says. The sangria leaves a cloying taste in his mouth, clashes with the sharp spice of the curry. “Can’t discover any alternate realities without my Sirius lighting the way, can I?”

Louis laughs a little, blurred and slow, butts his head against Zayn’s shoulder. “You still do it,” he says quietly. “You and your Ursa Major and your museum--” he stops, picks up Zayn’s hand and runs a thumb over the blue smudges, traces of Saturn’s well-rubbed rings in the middle of the food court. “--and your sneaking out in the middle of night to stargaze with a boy that leaves little bits of sunshine on you when you come back.”

“You’re drunk,” Zayn says. “You’re _so_ drunk right now.”

“Whatever,” Louis tells him. “’M just saying, even now. With all that, you always come back and tell me. You stop orbiting me and when you come back you’ve got your old parts and your new parts all mixed up. Tha’s why you’re my comet.”

“Jesus, Lou,” Zayn says, and it comes out like an exhale, near silent.

Louis waves a hand. It’s uncoordinated and nearly hits Zayn in the face. “’M just. I _like_ your rooftop romance. I like that Niall seems as stupid for stars as you are. I like seeing new parts of the universe on you, like, leftover sun and glitter that looks like stardust and blue smudges left over from planets. That’s why you’re my fucking comet, you know?” Louis blinks heavily, giggles helplessly into Zayn’s collar, and his breath smells like pineapples. “ _Fuck_ , I’m so drunk.”

Zayn laughs too, feels the sangria run sluggish through his veins and slow him down. “I also like that Niall’s as ‘stupid for stars’ as me,” he says. “You’d like him, I think,” he adds quietly. The sun and the brightest star, lighting up the galaxy. Burning through everything in their path.

“He likes you,” Louis mumbles. “’M already half in love with him.” He’s got his eyes closed, faced pinked up and mouth moving too slow. He heaves himself up, blinking blearily at the stairs. “Carry me home, my dependable, amazing Halley’s Comet?”

“ _Fuck_ no,” Zayn says. 

They do walk home, arms linked together, giggling under streetlights and Zayn swears Louis shines, always has. 

Brightest star in the sky and its loyal follower, even with 75 years in between. 

\-----

It’s orange shirts for the tour group today, and Zayn grimaces at the color, blindly fixing his hair for the sixth time since he’s pulled it over his head.

“How d’ya do that?” Niall asks. He’s leaned against the counter, nimble fingers cutting paper into an elaborate moon, his tongue sticking out as he shades in craters over the surface. There’s glue stuck to the tips of his fingers, from where he’d glued his own Big Dipper nametag together. 

“Do what?” Zayn asks. He watches Liam put another rack of cookies into the oven, calculating the time until they’re done. Zayn’s mouth already tastes too sweet, too much chocolate and that marshmallow goop Liam spoons in. 

Niall curses when he makes a crater too dark, and Zayn glances over and tries not to laugh at how awful the whole thing looks. “I’ll do it,” he says. “Give it here.”

Niall watches Zayn erase and draw it over, careful lines and delicate shading in just the right spots. “A perfect Selene,” he murmurs, and Zayn rolls his eyes and bites down on a smile. “A Selene for my Selene.”

“Intolerable,” Zayn tells him, and Niall throws his head back and laughs, bits of warmth spreading over the expanse of his neck. “How do I do what?” he asks again. Liam’s singing to the cookies, Zayn realizes distantly, and he turns his attention back to Niall. 

“Look good in orange,” Niall clarifies. “My boss assured me it was impossible.”

Zayn shrugs. He snatches the glue off the counter and attaches his moon to the base of the pin, careful not to prick himself. “You’ve stumbled into another universe,” he says sagely. “Where people can in fact look good in orange.”

“Or just _you_ ,” Niall argues. “Let me put it on you, ’s practically tradition now.”

Zayn stands stock still, looks down as Niall concentrates and winces a little when he inevitably stabs himself with the point like he does every time. “You’d think you’d be better at that by now.”

“Yer killin’ me pride, Ursa Major,” Niall says. He snags the pin through Zayn’s t-shirt with a flourish, this sort of satisfied hum, looks up at Zayn with midday blue eyes and smiles. Zayn reaches down and runs fingers through his sweaty, mussed up hair, blonde pulling back to reveal brown, like Niall’s own crater-deep secrets. Niall pushes his head against Zayn’s shoulder, breathing out a quiet sigh as his shoulders relax. “S’nice.”

Zayn can feel Niall’s limbs loosen, can feel the sunlight bleeding out of him like the end of the day, the quiet warmth finding its home under the stars. 

“Yeah,” Zayn says. He watches Liam disappear through the door, a tray of cookies in his hands. Zayn thinks about following him for a second, adding more cookies to the stash he and Niall have built up and hidden in the pocket’s of Zayn’s jacket. But Niall’s here, toeing that line of warmth right at sunset, and it’s almost like Zayn can trace the shadows of the horizon in his skin, the pale pink flush on his face that stains his neck and the tips of his ears. “Yeah, s’nice.”

Niall pulls back, looking dopey and tired and smiling all the same, like it’s just an extension of him. “Hey, so guess what I found out the other day?”

Zayn raises his eyebrows. “Pluto is actually a planet? The Earth isn’t round?”

“No to both, it’s that yer an arsehole,” Niall says flat. He shoves Zayn a little, backs him up against the counter and leans against him again, huffing out a sigh when Zayn laughs, shoulders shaking with it. “’M not tellin’ you now.”

“No, c’mon,” Zayn says. He digs his fingers in a little more, rubs at Niall’s scalp and feels him shiver a bit. “I’m listening.”

Niall plays out a rhythm against Zayn’s ribs, fingers tapping gentle and light against the bright orange of Zayn’s t-shirt. His hair falls in his eyes, his face turned down so his voice is muffled when he talks. “Yer gonna love this, I think,” he says.

And that had been one of the first things Niall had said to Zayn, and he _had_ loved it, had loved Niall’s Greek mythology and the way he bounced on his toes when he told it. Zayn had loved watching Niall’s fingers trace over the outline of Ursa Major, bits of sunshine pouring out his fingertips and bringing her to life.

“Tell me,” he says. “Is it a story?”

“I’m gonna be all out of stories if I keep tellin’ them to you,” Niall complains. “S’not a story. It’s Jupiter.”

“Jupiter,” Zayn repeats dumbly.

“Jupiter,” Niall says again. “Visible to the naked eye come Saturday night. You in? The observatory is gonna have a _sick_ view.”

Zayn feels the excitement thrum under his skin. His favorite planet, _Zeus’s_ planet, close enough that Zayn could gaze up at it himself, not have to trace over the blues and browns of its atmosphere compressed into the pages of a book. He wants to feel the observatory floor steady and cool under his back, wants to link his fingers with Niall and listens to the stories he’s got stored away in the craters of the moon about Jupiter’s origin, the mythology that runs along her surface and settles into her cracks.

“Come to mine,” is what he says though, the words lost to the universe, drifting off until Zayn can’t hear them anymore. “I mean,” he shrugs a little, dislodging Niall from where he’s pressed Zayn. “’S next time, isn’t it? My place.”

Niall pulls back, eyebrows raised. “You serious, Ursa Major?”

“Do you not want to?” and Zayn feels off-center now, like his orbit’s been knocked askew and he can’t find enough speed to catch up. “You don’t have to.”

“Shut up, man,” Niall says. “I want to. Me and you?”

Zayn bites his lip. His favorite planet, the biggest one in the solar system, close enough that Zayn could reach out and let his fingers catch over the surface, feel the spark of Zeus’s power vibrating under the atmosphere. Zayn thinks he wants to be anchored down for that, scared he might drift off if he wishes hard enough, end up floating some place in the galaxy with no idea how to get back home. Niall would pull him all the way if he could, wrap his sunlight infused hand around Zayn’s and pull them up until they couldn’t breathe. And Zayn would let him, only to return (loyal, dependable, periodic) and settle around his Sirius before he’d float off again.

“You could meet Louis,” Zayn says, slow and careful and the tattoo on his ankle seems to sear when Niall glances down at it. 

“Yeah,” Niall tells him. His skin runs gold when he smiles, muted but genuine, enough that Zayn relaxes, breathes. “Anything for you, Ursa Major.”

And Zayn feels the edges of his constellation coming together, a mash-up of the galaxy, pieces fitting together amidst the ordered chaos of the universe. 

\-----

When Zayn was seventeen, he’d packed his bags, filled them up with everything he could carry on his back. It hadn’t been much, a few pairs of skinnies, enough t-shirts that could be balled up and last him a week before they had to be washed. It had mostly been his books, those little guides to the galaxy he’d collected over the years, one of those big coffee table books on black holes he’d had to shove under his arm, the edge digging into his ribs.

It was the middle of the night, he remembers. He’d looked out his kitchen window, the one his mum was constantly on him for dirtying up, grubby fingers leaving prints behind, countless nights tracing stars through the glass. 

“You sure you want to?” she asked him. She was leaning against the counter, his own Orion Nebula, massive and bright and leaving just enough space for new stars to form under her wings. “You can stay as long as you need to, you know that.”

Zayn had turned away from the window, light from the universe imprinted and flashing at the back of his eyes. He’d shrugged, boots scuffing against the floor and _I just mopped that, Zayn, c’mon_ , her voice like a supernova, scarring his insides and leaving its mark. “I know,” he’d said. And he did. Knew she’d keep his telescope set up in his bedroom window and make sure his sisters stayed away from His Spot in the background, the one perfect for watching the phases of the moon, the one where he’d seen his first shooting star and made a wish he’d already forgotten.

“I know,” he said again, shrugging heavy shoulders and trying to remember how to breathe. “But Louis--” But Louis, and that was all that mattered, back when he was seventeen and chasing after exploding stars, following their trajectory and finding bits of them trapped under his skin. When Zayn was sure that Louis was the brightest star in the galaxy, in any galaxy, better than any North Star to guide Zayn into the abyss. _But Louis._ If Louis was going, Zayn was going, because Halley’s Comet was loyal and predictable and periodic and its orbit was set around Sirius’ flame. 

His mum had sighed, and Zayn had traced the slump of her shoulders, followed the line of her arms down to where her fingers clenched around the sharp edge of the counter. “One day,” she said, “One day you’ll realize Louis isn’t the center of your universe, babe. You’ll see that the universe is so much bigger, and that you can fit so many things inside it. Both of you can.”

“I know that,” Zayn whispered quietly, boots loud and thumping when he’d walked over and wrapped his arms around her, buried his face in her chest and breathed in.

He remembers it now, the words she whispered, how he’d known but hadn’t really, how it would feel to find something else (someone else) that settles into his own niche of the universe so nicely. He remembers it now, climbing up the steps to the roof of their flat, propping the emergency door open with his boots and carrying a case of wine coolers. It’s a little cooler out tonight, and he zips his jacket up, the chill winding through his lungs as he looks over the ledge. 

They’re waiting for midnight, when Jupiter will be in full view and Zayn will snatch a piece and store it away, dig out a hole in the moon’s crater and hide it for safekeeping. For now, he enjoys the muted buzz under his skin, the wine warming him up in its own way. He balances on the ledge between the roof and the fire escape, not much sturdier than the museum’s contraption. It reminds him of those nights, sneaking up on a roof much like this once, Niall’s voice twisting tales of gods and stars alike, the spirits of humans twined with the origin of the constellations that line the sky. 

He can still make out Niall’s voice from across the roof, bleeding through like a sunrise, his fingers up at the sky while he talks. Louis stands next to him, peering through the telescope Niall nicked from the museum. 

“What about that one?” Louis asks, and Niall squints up, hair flat, body ensconced in trackpants and a hoodie that’s too big for him. “Right above the Big Dipper?”

“Arcturus,” Niall says. “Use the handle of the Big Dipper to arc to Arcturus,” he says, and he turns around, eyes flitting across the roof before they land on Zayn, and he winks. 

“Clever,” Louis mumbles. “Where’s mine?”

Niall smiles a little, shifts as Louis tilts the telescope. “Can’t see Sirius right now, I don’t think. Usually in winter or spring.”

Louis scoffs, pulling his face back and frowning. His hair’s gotten too long again, hanging limp over his forehead and into his eyes. Niall hesitates for a moment, and Zayn’s breath catches when he reaches out and pushes it back, fingers threading through Louis’ hair like Zayn’s have done a million times before. Louis stiffens, _stubborn Sirius_ , before his shoulders relax, and Zayn watches him lean into it, just for a moment.

“Well, you’ll have to come back and show me,” he says after a moment, and he shoves Niall’s hand away, nudges him with his shoulder instead, two stars colliding. “Now where’s yours?”

“Mine?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. He shrugs a little, gesturing up at the sky. “Zayn isn’t satisfied unless he has everyone designated as something. In year five he told me my fish was the rust of Mars, fucking wanker.”

Niall laughs, the sound echoing off the roof, setting warm over Zayn’s skin as he walks over. “Dunno,” he says. “Think I’m just Niall, to be honest, mate.”

“Incorrect,” Zayn says, and he wraps his arms around Niall from behind, digs his chin into his shoulder. His heart is thumping out of his chest, some arrhythmic beat Niall can probably feel. “You can’t see him right now.” He steadies himself around Niall’s waist, fingers bracketed around his soft belly. Inhales the citrus sunshine’s infused in his hair. “But he’s got sunlight in his veins, and in the corners of his eyes when he smiles.”

“Ursa Major,” Niall breathes out, and Zayn hides his face, breathes in and holds it.

“Shut up,” he manages. His hands are shaking when he pulls back, when he stumbles over to the telescope and reminds himself of how big the universe is, how many things can be discovered. “I’ll show you mine though.”

Louis makes a noise in his throat, but Zayn can’t look at him, can’t look at either of them. “Thought we had another like fifty years ‘til you came back around.”

Zayn chances a glance at Niall, the way the moon mutes the golden hue of his hair, washes out the bits of warmth that cling to his face. Niall stares back, and Zayn thinks _for all you know, you’re not a comet at all_ , and Zayn knows, he _knows_ he is, but maybe Niall was right about something. Maybe Zayn doesn’t have to be one thing.

Maybe his mum was right too (and Orion Nebula always is, expansive enough to nurse a billion new stars into formation).

“I’m a man of many masks,” Zayn manages, voice coming out as steady as he can make it. He bends down a little, tilting the telescope up until the moon comes in a little more focused, just that much closer to Earth. “Niall, can you tell me and Lou something about Selene?”

Niall steps a little closer. “Almost time for Jupiter,” he murmurs. “You don’t want to miss it.”

Zayn shakes his head. He feels like a supernova himself, the force of all the components of his universe coming together like this. “I wanna hear it. Please?”

“Anything for you, Ursa Major,” Niall tells him. He sounds like a tour guide when he steps back, accent curling around the words, eyes set upward, tilted towards the ever-expanding galaxy. “She was a beautiful goddess, that’s what everybody says, you know?” He runs his fingers over the telescope, light and gentle and steady. “And she rode across the universe in a chariot pulled by two white horses. Some people called her the eye of the light. D’ya know why?”

“No,” Zayn says. “Tell me.”

“Because she could see everything in the sky,” Niall answers. “They used to think she was the wisest thing in the universe. Wiser than the stars and the sun, even.”

Zayn huffs out a laugh. “I don’t believe that.” His hands have stopped shaking, his heart settling in his chest. He feels Louis come up next to him, his brightest star, infusing power through his veins when he knocks their shoulders together. 

“’S midnight,” Louis whispers, and all three of them look up, waiting for Niall’s noise of recognition.

“There,” he points. 

Zayn tilts his head up, and if he squints, _there_ , up high is Jupiter, biggest planet in the solar system, king of the gods. It’s not close enough to touch, but Zayn feels the pull anyway, the trail that stardust leaves for him to follow. He twines his fingers with Louis’ first, then Niall’s, the newest addition to his universe, proof that it is always changing, always expanding, always getting better in all its creations. 

There is Jupiter, spinning around on its axis. There is Selene, anchored to the Earth but intertwined with the Sun. There is Sirius, hidden but still bright, more powerful than the human mind can know. 

There is Zayn, tethered to his own universe, Halley’s Comet and the Moon and room to change, room to grow, room to add more stars and planets and moons when he wants.

\-----

Zayn wakes up in his bed. It’s too warm under the blankets, summer’s pull and Niall’s own heat thrumming under his skin while he sleeps. He’s a bit hungover still, evident in the slow, languid movement of his limbs, how his eyelids still feel heavy.

Niall shifts and turns over, blinks open his eyes, blue like Neptune, as complex as a galaxy all on their own. 

“Mornin’, Ursa Major,” he says, accent catching over the sleep in his voice. 

Zayn takes him in, the highlights summer’s given him, the red over his nose, the beginnings of a sunburn. “Mornin’ sunshine,” he says, and watches the smile on Niall’s face, how it stretches and forms a world of its own.

Niall leans over and kisses him, and he tastes like sleep and wine and daybreak, like sunlight peeking over the horizon and spilling over on Zayn. His fingers spark where he touches Zayn’s skin, like scorch marks settling into skin and leaving a scar.

Zayn kisses him back, and his orbit adjusts to it, recalibrates and resets itself until Zayn catches up.

\-----


End file.
